Master and Commander was very weak. There's no bloody villain! No conflict!
It's overproduced, underwritten with no real focus. The French ship never has
ANY character. Aubrey may as well be battling a big wave....but even that would
be more interesting. Beyond the poor script, other aspects of the film were
okay. Crowe failed to impress me as a boat captain, mumbling half of his lines
and over-acting with others. Peter Wier's direction is not suited for a film of
this type. The battle scenes are big but not cohesive in the least. He has no
control over 3 dimensional film space during action sequences, unless they are
very linear and contained as in Witness or Fearless. The final engagement makes
little or no sense at all.
In two scenes you could see HUGE black fenders on deck, clearly set for
raft-ups for the camera barge. Very dangerous. And finally, no sharks are used
in the film!
Clearly...I'm quite dissapointed.

To avoid dissapointment...among other greats...

Moby Dick (Huston version)
Dead Calm
The Sea Wolf (Curtiz version)
Mutiny on the Bounty (With Charles Laughton-probably still the best)

RB