HMS Surprise… 28 Guns… 197 Souls...Coast of Brazil , April 1805

… Intercept the French Privateer, Acheron … you will sink, burn or take her as a prize

Russell Crowe’s seafaring epic is now released in a 2 disc set by Fox Home Entertainment.  Directed by Peter Weir and based on one of the acclaimed series of novels by the late Patrick O’Brien, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (the unwieldy title is a compromise between director and studio Weir wanted to call the movie Far Side but the studio smelling a Franchise opportunity thought Master and Commander was the way to go) is set in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars where Captain Jack Aubrey is leading the men aboard his ship HMS Surprise on a chase to track down the dastardly French warship the Acheron.

The first part of the longish 132 minute movie is very much character development central as we see the relationship between best friends Aubrey and the ships doctor Maturin (the always excellent Paul Bettany), Maturin is a man for whom life at sees comes well down the list of his priorities preferring to spend as much time on land (at the various spots the ship docks at) using his skills as a naturalist to track new species of plant and animal life (this is all very Charles Darwin and Captain Fortune but it does help provide the movie with most of it’s limited light relief).

Although very wordy the movie packs plenty of action moments too and your surround sound will come alive as the Surprise comes face to face with the Acheron with much crashing of the ships boughs and cannon shot aplenty . Weir is very adept of combining the two elements of action and the inevitable inaction you would experience on board ship and you do get the sense of life on board such a ship with its highly structured class system ( a character receives a flogging for not saluting to a superior officer). Master and Commander certainly looks the part and is also extremely watchable.

This 2 disc set is also cram bang full of extras, disc two starts with a series of features best of which is the first called The Hundred Days, a nicely indepth hour long look at the making of the movie; Next is In The Wake Of O’Brien in which Peter Weir talks about the 20 Patrick O’Brien novels; Cinematic Phasmids looks at the special effects on the film whilst there is a look at the movie’s audio in On Sound Design, finally there is your standard HBO pre release behind the scenes featurette.  Next comes six deleted scenes, mostly of stuff trimmed for timing reasons, nothing majorly exciting.  There is also a very interesting multi angle segment of a battle scene where you can choose which camera angle to view the action from. Finally there are four extensive stills galleries.