Master & Commander – The Far Side Of The World (2003/Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: A- Extras: D Film: D
Peter
Weir is the most overrated director around and no matter what critics and the
likeminded say about him; his films are never talked about much after the hype
fades. One of his longest and most drawn
out (it took four studios to make it, including Fox, Universal, Disney/Miramax
and Samuel Goldwyn/MGM) productions, he made Master & Commander – The Far Side Of The World with Russell
Crowe as the Captain of a British Naval, finally making it into theaters in 2003.
At 138
minutes, it goes on and on and on and on and on. And did I mention is goes on and on and on
and on? I thought this film was a pure
torture test, even though some money was put into it. I thought for the kind of picture it was, it
could not even outdo the 1962 Mutiny On
The Bounty with Marlon Brando (on HD-DVD and Limited Edition CD elsewhere
on this site) which had its problems, but was nowhere as pretentious as this
was.
To be
fair to the film, I will let you read about the DVD set in a very positive
review of the film by a fellow writer on the site that has the opposite view of
the director and film as I do:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1039/Master+&+Commander+(Collector
That is
all the summary and praise you will ever need to see on the film, so with that
done, we’ll move onto the Blu-ray’s performance.
The 1080p
AVC @ 25 MBPS 2.35 X 1 image is not bad and better than the DVD, which I felt
my fellow writer overrated a bit. Dated
digital, even upon its original release, holds back the performance of the
image, unless you are a sucker for HD and digital effects. The image is consistent, but it just cannot
compete with similar epic films shot in large frame format, no matter how good
the effects get. The Perfect Storm had
better CG than this.
The sound
is what saves this film if anything and the DTS HD Master Audio (MA) Lossless
5.1 mix outdoes the Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes here and on previous DVD
releases. That previous DVD set had DTS,
but you can hear the improvements in clarity here and Fox has added the D-BOX
Motion function for those lucky enough to have that bass system in their home
theaters. The look of the film is not so
memorable and neither is the music, but the sound design is inarguably good.
Despite
this being a 50GB disc, there are few extras here unlike the DVD set, but you
get the trailer in HD, a Pop-Up Map, deleted scenes and a trivia track with
history and geography while you watch if you want to. It cannot save the film, but makes the
Blu-ray more useful.
You would
think the film would have had a boost by the success of three Pirates Of The Caribbean films and
counting, but no such luck. Maybe the
Blu-ray will change that, but with so many good picture and sound performers
already on the market, it will likely be limited to its few fans and as demo
material.
- Nicholas Sheffo
