Master And Commander vs Pearl Harbor

Once in a while, you get the idea that a director is making a movie just for fun. They feel like working, but maybe like working on something a little inconsequential. Something fun to pass the time. Gus Van Sant has his Psycho remake, Steven Sodderberg has Ocean’s Eleven, George Lucas has Attack of the Clones…

Peter Weir’s latest, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, would seem to be either a stuffy historical drama, or a bloated war movie. It’s neither. Despite its lofty themes and accomplished cast, Master and Commander just might be what Peter Weir does for fun. And that’s just fine with me.

 Master and Commander is set in 1805, and focuses on a season with the British Navy. It’s a war movie, but ultimately, it’s a character piece, about two friends and the unforgiving time in which they were living. Russell Crowe stars as Captain Jack Aubrey, who commands his ship. He’s a firm leader, but also somewhat of a father figure to the crew, which is largely younger. He has a wife or girlfriend back home, but you get the idea fairly quickly that the men on his ship have become a surrogate family. His closest friend is Dr. Stephen Maturin, played by Paul Bettany. Stephen is Jack’s opposite in many ways. While Jack is exhilarated by battle and strategy (to call him “swashbuckling” wouldn’t be far off), Stephen is more interested in reading, research, and studying lizards or birds. They find common ground in music, which they play during their down-time. The scenes of them on cello and violin are great, providing instant character work, and giving the movie’s score a boost at the same time.

There are battle scenes of great immediacy and intimacy in Master and Commander. There are moments of cannonball-firing, but also of hand-to-hand combat, right there in the tiny cabins and hulls of the ships. The scenes are staged amazingly well, never letting up on the element of surprise, and creating a constant sense of claustrophobia.

As a Captain, Jack is relentless in his vision, but refreshingly open-minded in terms of strategy. He’s always up for, say, turning out the lights on the ship, and setting up a floating decoy in the middle of the night, or painting the boat and dressing his crew like whalers to draw their bigger, more powerful and experienced adversaries in even closer. Jack’s crew is made up of some very young men, but they’re treated the same as anyone else: punished when they slip, and rewarded with extra booze for their heroics (the characters drink more, and revel in the joys of drinking, more than in any movie I can recall. I suppose that’s how it is when liquor is your only luxury. Not that I would know. I’m just guessing.)

Russell Crowe is great in Master and Commander, as he often is. Somehow, Crowe has maintained his ability to be a huge movie star and still disappear within a role. The real find here, though, is Paul Bettany, as Stephen. He’s near unrecognizable from his other work. Stephen’s dedication to his studies is admirable, especially when he gets a chance to walk around on the Galapagos Islands, looking for new species. He takes along a young soldier, and it’s interesting to see how the boy is being influenced by both Jack and Stephen. He’s Stephen’s most helpful assistant, but also the youngest of the men Jack puts in command. Which man he ends up the most like, I’ll leave for you to discover. Bettany also has a scene that answers the question, “What would happen if the ship’s doctor needed surgery, and no one else knew how to perform surgery?” I’ll tell you this much: it involves a mirror, and me looking the other way.

Master and Commander is visually impressive as well. I’m sure at this point there aren’t any movies not using CGI, but I couldn’t find any in Master and Commander. There’s a scene with Jack and Stephen at the top of a sail, and the camera pulls back, and back, and back, until we see the full ship on screen, sailing away, with the men still on top. The only explanation I have for it is that Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany climbed to the top of the mast. Another scene, set during a storm at night, finds a man overboard, and it’s seamless in portraying the ship and soldier out to sea, lost in the waves.

Master and Commander is old-fashioned, but passionately so. Weir and co. seem completely content with telling a classic story, and not portraying it as anything it’s not. Master and Commander always seems one-hundred percent 1805 (okay, except for the moment when I said “Hey, it’s Pippin!”). Master and Commander is never stilted or clichéd, except in the ways that are really cool, meaning there’s lots of telescoping and sail-raising and sword fighting, but no over-the-top dialogue or melodrama or cheesy romances. For that, you have to go to Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor is only a couple years old, but doesn’t it seem like more? Doesn’t it seem like Pearl Harbor came out the same year as Ghost? It didn’t. It was only 2001. I think we were all supposed to make Pearl Harbor a perennial and celebrate its spirit and beauty and story for years to come. We don’t though. I wonder why that is? Oh yeah, because it sucks.

Pearl Harbor, unlike Master and Commander, has no idea that it’s just for fun. It’s a movie for people who wished Schlinder’s List were in color, or thought that The Thin Red Line would have been more fun if it just had, say, a volleyball game or maybe some karaoke.

Pearl Harbor focuses on the friendship of Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. Gimme just a second here. Rafe McCawley? Are you kidding me? Rafe. McCawley. Sounds like Michael Bay has been reading too many romance novels. Anyway, Rafe and Danny are best friends, perhaps bonding over their shared taste in modern haircuts. Where these two found that much boy-band style pomade is beyond me.

They enlist in the Army and fall in love with Evelyn, and nurse played by Kate Beckinsdale. Evelyn seems to have been based on old pin-ups from the WWII era, rather than on actual nurses. She and her colleagues spend the entire movie in full pancake makeup and bright red lipstick, their hair curled just so. Sure they’re meant to evoke a period, but after a while, it seemed more like satire. Rafe falls for Evelyn, and they have a short romance, and then he’s lost in battle, so she takes up with Danny. Everything out of their mouths is of the sub-Titanic variety. And then…Rafe comes back! Love triangle complete! Yikes, what’s going to happen? Who will she pick? Will she decide before the bombs fall?

A similar theme is featured in Master and Commander, and it is handled thusly: Jack pulls out a small framed picture of a woman and looks at it. Then he puts it back. That’s it. Just looks at a picture, and we know everything we need to know about Jack as a man with a dilemma and a job to do.

Ah, but what about those bombs in Pearl Harbor? Aren’t they kick-ass? Don’t they make you wanna high-five like Maverick and Goose? Yes, they’re very impressive visually. We even follow one bomb all the way from the air to the ground. Cool. I guess. I mean, it’s in the portrayal of one of the greatest tragedies in history. Is it in bad taste to make it cool? That’s not for me to say. Is it in a bad movie? Yes. Yes it is.

Pearl Harbor has no pace or timing or mood whatsoever. Is it romantic? Well, at one point, Evelyn says “I’ll never look at another sunset without thinking of you.” Is it historically accurate? Well, at one point, President Roosevelt stands up from his wheelchair during a meeting, just for emphasis. That perked up those old fogey suits, I tell ya. Did it ever actually happen? Hm…

One character, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. has the potential to set Pearl Harbor on a more meaningful path, and indeed, his character probably would have made a good movie by himself. He gets one good scene, using a gun he’s not supposed to be allowed to touch. Otherwise, he gets the short end of the stick. So does anyone watching this action movie masquerading as a history lesson. Gross.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World: A-
Pearl Harbor: D