Master and Commander (2003) - Nostalgia Check

This week on Nostalgia Check presented by BJ in the Morning, we finally watch Master and Commander Far Side of the World for the very first time and ask ourselves one question: how did we miss this movie for so long?

From massive naval battles and incredible practical effects to Russell Crowe commanding one of cinema’s most memorable crews, we break down our honest first reactions, favorite moments, biggest surprises, and whether this historical epic lives up to its legendary reputation.

Did this movie deserve more attention? Is it one of the most underrated films of the 2000s? And why aren’t movies like this made anymore?

Join us as we experience Master and Commander for the first time and put it to the test.

#MasterAndCommander #FirstTimeWatch #MovieReview #NostalgiaCheck #BJInTheMorning #MoviePodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome back to the morning, your favorite dirty name podcast, where we are gonna step into the deck with first time watches, rewatches, and everything else. My name's Brendan. And I'm one. I stumbled a little bit there. Um, you looked at me during the intro, like, what are you fucking talking about? The perfect cannonball?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

We'll get there. Okay. We'll get there. We'll get there. Just know when I talk about the cannonball scene later, uh-huh. This moment.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And for all of you guys out there this week, for our first time watch, we watched Master and Commander, Far Side of the World. We have never seen this movie before. Until today. Well, I mean, two days ago for me, but did you watch it today?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

I watched I started it last night and I finished it. I watched it yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, I watched it yesterday morning because I had to freaking work today. Um I usually watch the movie we haven't seen right before coming over here. So um so it stays fresh. What a time. Um, we had never seen this movie before. Have you even heard of this movie before? No. I I don't want to spoil too much of our episode, uh-huh, but like I'm shocked more people haven't talked about this movie. Like, I have not heard anyone ever talk about this movie. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

And I'm just shocked about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Although there are a lot of people on the internet that really like this movie to talk about this movie. Yeah. Um, yeah, no, it was uh So this movie is a fictional movie based off of historical the the historical things, but like based off of the captain of this ship.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Right. And it's based on a book in the Master and Commander series, which is why the title is Master and Commander Far Side of the World. Because it's based on a book with the Master and Commander as its like main overarching title.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Um but it's a historic piece, it's very historic.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

It's set during the Napoleonic era. Um, they hate Napoleon. Yeah, they hate him in this movie, big time. Um, but this movie did come out in 2003, the same year that Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl came out, which is what we watched last week. Um, and if you were here for that episode, we kind of alluded to this movie a couple times because Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and everyone who made this movie probably shit themselves. They're like fuck shit, goddammit. Um this movie though, pi not really pirates. It's it's it's a naval sea odyssey of sorts. Yeah, it's got a two-hour, eighteen minute.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

They do mention pirates, they do mention pirates, and they tell they say if they were pirates, we'd be able to hang them off of our boat, which obviously they don't like they don't like pirates.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Pirates because they're naval officers.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Pirates are very real pirates out there in the in the world, yeah. Um, even now. But I'm the captain now. But uh the fact that this movie is not a pirate movie, but it is showing us how like the the culture of of ship living back then and and uh war you know in the 1800s, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

How war was or at sea, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's there's a lot in this movie, so we should probably get going. Let's get into it. Um, 2003, like I said, two-hour, 18-minute runtime, so shorter by a couple minutes. But tagline during the Napoleonic Wars, a brash British captain pushes his ship and crew to their limits in pursuit of a formidable French war vessel around South America. I'd say that's pretty much the movie. Thanks for listening. Just kidding. Uh 7.5 on IMDb. Pretty good. Not bad, not bad, not bad. 81 on metascore. Okay. It's pretty good as well. Uh, top cast, you have Russell Crowe. Legend. I I just gonna say now because it's gonna come up again. I forgot how much I like Russell Crowe. He's a he's great. I want to talk a lot about how likable he is as an actor. I don't know if there's any let me say this for the record. I don't know if there's anything negative about him in real life, but as an actor, he's a really great actor. Like he is very likable, very like I just wanted I would follow this guy.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, I'm I remember watching this movie, and I and I said to myself, anyone in this movie can die except Russell Crowe's character.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Um, we also have Paul Bettney returning from our uh we he's been in a movie we watched. What movie? Uh what movie? Just in a movie. Any movie he's been in. We've seen him before. Anyways, moving on. The Avengers. Um, also, we found out where Pippin went after Lord of the Rings. I did this.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I thought you meant uh a movie we reviewed recently. No, I was like, what movie?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

What movie? Uh so Billy Boyd's in this. Um shout out. We have a picture with him somewhere around here. It's over there. It's over there. Chris Larkin, Max uh Perkis, Max Bennett, Robert Pugh, Richard McCab, uh Ian Mercer, David Threefall, uh Brian Dick, Joseph Morgan, and the list goes on and on. This movie was directed by Peter Weir. Do you know any other movies that Peter Weir has directed? The Truman Show. The Truman Show. Wild.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Mm-hmm. So like To go from Truman Show to 1800 period pieces.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Um, so yeah, he's directed uh The Wayback, which I never saw, Master and Commander, Truman Show, Fearless, uh, Dead Poet Society, um, and Witness, many others. Um, I just want to point out that Peter Weir makes movies, my guy. Like going through the list, I'm like, yep, that's that's a movie that I want to watch, you know? Yeah. Um, so Peter Peter Weir uh did help write the screenplay with John Cawley and Patrick uh O'Brien, who wrote the novels that the movie's based on. Sweet. I did say it's got a 7.5 on the IMDB scale. So let's get into the snooty tootie uh fresh and fish. Pirates booty. Oh, nice. Yours was better. Um the snooty, the snooty uh reviews here uh from IMDB. So from 2006, eight out of ten, there is a scene in Master and Commander, the far side of the world. A long title, too long. We're just gonna say Master and Commander from now on. Sounds good. Uh, where the captain of a British naval ship, circa 1805, debates the difference between duty and passion, having passed on an opportunity to make wonderful new discoveries in favor of the pursuit of a massive French warship. The scene manages to make a rather eloquent yet subtle comment on the nature of a man and his place within the world. The beauty of this film uh is that there are many such moments where the viewer is simultaneously bombarded with thematic musings, exciting action sequences, great acting, and historical accuracy to the point where it becomes difficult to take it all in at once. Nine out of ten, here we go. Uh, we have surprise on our side, which is a quote. I love that quote. It was a great time. And surprised I was after hearing oh, this one's from 2004. Okay. So the year after the year after. After hearing a friend rant endlessly about it, who uh and having nothing to do one Friday night, I rented Master and Commander. For those of you who don't know, renting movies was a thing that we used to do back in the day. You would post your baby to a store and you would pick one or two movies out and have to return them by Monday, or you got hit with crazy fees. Yeah. You did not keep them, you did not get to stream them from your TV.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Or you would pay so many fees until you were allowed to just keep it.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Uh after paying like six times the amount of just buying the movie. Uh, anyways, I rented Master and Commander. The marketing staff should be cackling in glee that a female in her 20s would love this movie. It's an amazing movie. Russell Crowe is a force of nature, and all other actors from Paul Betney to Billy Boyd give wonderful performances. I especially enjoyed the details of life at sea, though most would call them boring. The day after my five-day rental, I had to run to the nearest shop and buy the DVD. And have since re-watched it endlessly. I've never seen a more beautifully adapted filmed and acted movie. Five out of five stars. Beautiful. One out of ten. Oh. From April 2005. Oh. The acting of Russell Crowe is boring. He is unable to show more than two different faces. All the time he's smiling, smart, even if he lost a crewman or got shot down. I wanted to see a dramatic sea movie like The Bounty with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, but there was nothing like this. It was just a modern action movie. Russell Crowe is unable to act in any emotion. He got the chance to act as a captain between hate and desperation, but he doesn't. I tried to find something special about this movie, but only the special effects and design of the ship rescued this movie. Sorry, but I've seen a few movies that were less boring than this.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

I mean, I don't agree, but I do agree with that they could have used a little more oomph on the dramatic parts of this movie.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I do have some stuff I want to talk about in regards to that. Should we do that now or do you want to wait? Let's do it now. Okay, so this movie is dramatic. There's a lot of downtime, but the downtime I constantly felt on edge. Like with the the mutiny almost happening, yeah. Um, with the struggle between um um Captain Aubrey and uh Dr. Uh Dr. Motorin. So Paul Bentney and Russell Crowe, like their dynamic. I was like, be nice to your friend. But then at the same time, you're like, but he's got he's a captain of a ship for a reason. Yeah, he's got to perform for Britain and for his crew, right? And if he makes the wrong call, it can like destroy everything, right? So like yeah, this movie not may not be filled with action, but there were moments where I like felt the dynamic of the captain versus the crew, or the crew versus the captain, or you know, one side versus the other, like often. But yeah, but I also want to point out the fact that there are so many moments of like uplifting like dialogue or scenes or interactions where you see Russell Crowe talking to someone and teaching them something, and you're like, yeah Especially with the younger crew, the lieutenants, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, when you see him make the call on cutting the rope to uh the crewmen when he starts floating away into sea. That scene I think could have used a little more emotion.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I see, I think I might have seen it differently than you.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Okay, yeah, I'm just Well, I I'm not saying it was a bad scene. I mean, I knew exactly what was going on. I knew that you know the the captain had to make a call and it was either one person or the whole ship. I think after that the emotion part came from the friend and not from the captain, and maybe that's you know, the captain can't feel the emotion because he has to move forward.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking is uh he had to be stoic. He couldn't show that he was hurting or that he made the call for the he know he knew he made the call for the betterment of the entire crew, but it wasn't easy. You could see how much they were struggling and trying to get the guy back on the ship. And some of those calls that he made, he faced him with anger, which I think was masking him wanting to make a different call. Yeah, God, I don't know. There's a lot of complexity to this movie, despite what that review said. Right. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Um, let's head over to Letterboxd, though. Sure. For the the Wild West of reviews.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Wild West.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Uh, the pirate side of the reviews. It's like the shit people would say down below dick. Right. Um, not in the captain's quarters. Four stars out of five over on Letterboxd. Someone I follow watched this movie and gave it four and a half stars. It's Kit Laser. You know who Kit Laser is? He reviews movies on online all the time. Oh, he did leave a review. You ready? I'm gonna read his. Why not? Why not? Uh Immaculate Production Design Simultaneous simultaneously makes being on a boat with your mates look like the worst and best thing ever. Nothing can make an American audience cheer for the British more than when they fight the French. That's from Kit Laser. Um, all right, let's go. Let's go into these. Um, five stars, best Star Trek movie ever. Star Trek? Yeah. Does it have Star Trek elements in it?

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Star Trek is ship v ship in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Well, Star Trek is based off of like naval like uh uh stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Except like in space. Uh you know what I mean? Someone put here just lesser of two weevils.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Paul Bettney performs surgery on himself in the Galapagos, and that's not even the craziest thing that happens in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Um, four stars. This film oozes skill and craftsmanship from every cinematic pour, adapted from a couple of novels from Patrick O'Brien's 20 volume uh series. It manages to capture the sense of adventure and historical illusion really well. Four and a half stars, a quintessential dudes rock movie. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, brother. Uh, four stars. Unfortunately, I must admit that dudes rock.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Uh that's where Pippin went after the ring was destroyed. Damn it. They made the joke before me, I guess. Some bitch. Some bitch. I watched this while delirious with fever, which made it funny enough an incredibly authentic viewing experience. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, brother. Uh, part of me really oh, this is four stars. Part of me really wishes the whole movie was just about Paul Betney walking around the Galapagos Islands looking at animals.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I know. I really wanted him to find that bird. Uh right.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

I really wanted him to find I love though, where he's like, it it's flightless, right? It'll be there. It'll be there. Um, my brother's been trying to get me to watch this for 18 years. He should have tried harder. It's a bummer. This is three and a half stars, so it's a little lesser. Uh it's a bummer to think Paul Batney was so close to discovering evolution had Russell Crowe not been getting in the way. He's the captain. He's the captain. You gotta pay attention. I think that's all the reviews that we're gonna be reading uh from Letterboxd. So now is the time where we're gonna go break down the movie. The beginning. Yeah. What happens in the beginning? Get a lot of text, con context to the story, where we're at, what's going on. Right. Which I was fine with. Right. It's uh it's a we open in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, where Captain Jack Aubrey, another Jack, uh played by Russell Crowe, commands the HMS Surprise, a British warship hunting French privateers in the Atlantic. Before breakfast even hits the table, the ship gets ambushed by a French warship emerging from a thick fog like a horror movie monster. This ship is terrifying. Like anytime it's shot, like this the like the way the ship is shot from the distance in the fog and everything like that. Through the eyeglass. Yeah, he sees it for a split second and no one believes him. Yeah. Until the cannon starts shooting out of the fog, right? Right. I was waiting for like a jump scare cannon to come through the fog, but I'm like, there's no way in hell that there wouldn't be the the cannon, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

But it still did what I thought was gonna happen, where there's just a flash of light in the fog, and then the cannons come through and they're getting attacked. Um what a way to start this movie.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, and they uh very quickly realize that this this uh ship is shooting at them from twice the distance that they would uh normally be shooting from. I think uh opening with this action sequence is brilliant. Yeah. I thought you know, it's the perfect way to open with uh a war uh uh movie, although there were parts of this uh sequence that uh had me a little confused. Some of these uh shots were so quick that I didn't know exactly what was going on. Um I didn't know if it was the French boat or the British boat, or it wasn't enough time for me to like we weren't established established with who was what and who was on what ship and what ship is which. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Um I think that adds to the the chaos that we needed to feel in the moment too.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

I I I get that. I just I just remember being like, what who is who what's going on? Why are they in the boats? Why are the boats tied to the ship?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Technically, they got ambushed and so did we as the viewers, right? So we we had no time to like get to know any characters. We got to know all these people very fast in a moment of chaos, in a moment of desperation, right? They're all freaking out. Um, so they're they're getting completely smashed by by the acronym, right? Yeah, um, so there's massive casualties, lots of lots of people die, splintered wood flying around like like bullets themselves, right? Uh and their ship is nearly disabled. Right. And they're kind of stranded out there in the in the ocean, uh-huh. Recouping their their losses, trying to fix things up. Uh, but Captain Aubrey refuses to retreat. Right. He decides that this has become uh like a revenge plot because of how much the enemy has hurt his crew. Yeah. Um, so he wants to hunt down the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And he even refuses to uh to pull off somewhere to repair the ship. He wants to repair the ship while they're while they're going after them.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Um I did really like all those little things though of watching people repair the ship and and like getting to see aspects of ship combat that we haven't really seen in movies before. And I know that this movie did a lot of research to make sure that it was as accurate as possible. So I think seeing a lot of that was really was really awesome.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

And people and people have their roles, right? So it's not just you go fix the deck, because no, it's like people know what they need to do, and they do it, and that's the discipline of the ship, right? Yeah, they follow their orders and they live for the ship.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

And I think that has a lot to say about Captain Aubrey. Throughout this whole movie, I was just like, this guy's a leader. Um, everyone for the most part follows his direction without any kind of like pushback or grievance or anything like that. Like anything he needs done, he's direct about it, but not he's not an asshole about it. And everyone, if you you can feel the respect for him because of how they treat the ship, right, and how they just do what's needed of them. And I think you see that throughout the entire movie. And like we're saying at the beginning of the episode, Russell Crowe is that kind of person in this movie. Like in most movies that he's been in, he's like someone you want to follow.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

He demands the attention of everybody.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, he does everybody and he doesn't expect it without giving something back, right? And you can see later on, he's like extra rations for them because of this. And he does little things that might seem kind of small to us now in the modern era, but back then an extra ration of rum was like a huge freaking deal. Right. Um, and even like when later on someone says you should cut off their grog, and he's like, No, that's that's insane. Yeah. And you're like, he looks out for his people, even though he might put them in danger because of what he's gonna do the rest of the movie, right? Yeah. Uh meanwhile, the ship's surgeon, um, played by Paul Bentney, acts as Aubrey's intellectual counterbalance. So while Captain Aubrey is very much uh, we need to go to war, we need to stop these guys, um, Steven, uh played by Paul Bentney, um, is very much like, well, we should weigh the options and really think about this and consider these things. Um, so Aubrey's very war first, whereas um Matarin is very like science. First, people first, uh, and their friendship becomes the emotional core of the film. I can imagine that where you felt lost and chaotic in the opening and not knowing who's who, that would probably be how it feels to be in that situation. Like, so maybe that's why they did it. Maybe it's why it felt that way.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Intentional.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

It's an it's an intentional, like get you in the in the feeling of it. Cause as soon as the movie slows down after that, I started paying attention to the people and saying, like, oh, I recognize that person's face from this thing that happened, and this person's and they could have got his arm cut off. That was heartbreaking. When you see all the splinters in his arm and everything, or was it bone sticking out or bolts?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I couldn't tell the still shot was so fast.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

But because I at first thought it was just splinters, and then later he says it was broken. I'm like, maybe it was bones, and then they cut his arm off. And he's he holds, dude. He doesn't scream or uh and you can tell that everyone's really sad that they have to cut this kid's arm off. And all these kids, there's a bunch of kids in this movie that are probably like anywhere between like 10, 15 to 20, something. See, I don't understand like the you know, like how they choose, you know, who is the lieutenants, the lieutenants and stuff, but like the kids being they're probably a royal descent or um kids of of people like naval officers, things like that, who are being brought up in the situation to take over. And you see that later on, you know, when they when they make another one of them captain of the other ship. Yeah. Spoilers. Uh 23-year-old movie. Um so yeah, this movie starts out with the worst, the world's worst wake-up call. So after the repairs, Aubrey turns the mission into a personal vendetta. He's pissed. How dare they surprise attack us? Right. They're the surprise. Right. The Akron's not the surprise. The surprise is the surprise.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

And as they're going, this ship somehow keeps catching up with them.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

It's either ahead of them or behind them, and it's just like a game of cat and mouse.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

You just never know, you know, are they coming up on them or are the French coming up on the British? You know what I mean? So they can't come from anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

The ocean is big. The crew slowly starts to crack under pressure. Um, so the young midshipmen are forced to grow up really fast. So, like the lieutenants we were talking about, right? Sailors start becoming superstitious because one of the the lieutenant kids, the oldest one, who's 30, um they start thinking that he's the problem because there's no wind, they've been stuck for a while now while they were doing their repairs, and they said anytime that guy's on watch, that ship shows up. So they start blaming him. So because everyone's getting hungry, exhausted, and paranoid. Um, so the psychological pressure on board starts becoming just as dangerous as the enemy itself. Um, Paul Bentney keeps trying to remind Aubrey there's more to life than war. Um, he's fascinated by exotic wildlife and desperately wants to reach the Galapagos Islands for scientific discovery. Aubrey basically says, Um, that's that's cool that you want to go find these birds, but we got a fucking boat to sink. So, yeah, the the chase pushes the crew around Cape Horn, one of the deadliest routes in the world. Um, and this becomes like pure survival horror at this point. So there's freezing storms and giant waves and crew members that are swept overboard, um, which we mentioned. Um, a young officer freezes during a crisis, causing a disaster that kills a sailor, um, and the guilt destroys him emotionally. Um, this part of the movie was very daunting, it was hard to like pay attention to some of it. Um, I mentioned in the last one about second screen movies. Um, this is one of the times out of two times that I picked up my phone during the movie, but I made a mental note that this is when I picked up my phone. I didn't pick up my phone very long, but I noticed that I picked it up. Yeah. Um, but this part of the movie is all about leadership. Um, so it's Aubrey demanding strength at all times. Steven sees the emotional damage happening to the crew, and uh the young sailors are forced into adulthood overnight. We do have the ship comes up on them at night. Um, that's before they get to the Galapagos Islands, right? Yeah, they devise this insane plan to make the decoy.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

The decoy, yeah. Uh-huh. They make a decoy ship, they send somebody off onto that decoy. One of the kids, the lieutenant. It was one of the kids, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah, the the main kid that was like there was scenes where he was yelling, like pumping up the crew when they were shooting cans and everything. He was like, It's like, yeah, look at that guy, look at him go. He's gonna be a great captain one day. And he's yeah. So what they do is they built a fake mast on a lifeboat and sent it out behind their boat with lights that mimic the light, the lanterns hanging on the actual ship. Because middle of the ocean at night, no technology, right? You're just gonna see the lanterns and think it's the ship. But the kids gotta go out there and light the lanterns the same time that they're turning them on, like dousing them on the on the ship. Yeah, and then he's gotta be pulled back from the lifeboat while they send it off to another way at night. Scary. Yeah. I I s when the when the the acron started shooting cannons, I was like, that kid's gonna die right now. Right. I was terrified.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

I was actually very pleased that it worked. I was I was like, holy shit. It gave him a little extra time. I wish we could have seen the perspective of the French at that in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

I I could see why. But also like having the French seem like a mystery the entire movie until the end made them terrifying. Yeah, that that ship was terrifying because it it's got that black pearl feel to it, you know. But they get to the Galapagos and we get a much needed break from this. You start feeling the cabin fever effects in this movie on the ship, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you're in this one spot for for X amount of time, and you're like, Okay, I'm starting to get the heebs and the jeebs, I'm feeling a little cramped. Um, but everyone seems pretty pretty excited to get off the ship and uh get to to study wildlife and explore the islands. Um, and for a minute the movie kind of turns into like a nature documentary, and I thought it was really beautiful, you know, like you get this piece like a respite from the being shot at by the French, you know? It seems like everything's gonna be okay for a minute, but Steven accidentally gets shot by another officer on the ship, right, who was trying to shoot a bird. It caught me off guard that he got shot. But as soon as that guy was waving a gun around, I was like, he's gonna shoot someone. Right. I didn't expect it to be him.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

No, but it didn't need to be him because how were we gonna get to the island? Yeah, because the movie said so. Yeah. Paul Bettany is the only doctor/slash surgeon uh-huh who knows what he's doing on that ship.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, and they they have to go back to the island at this point, right? They were gonna leave, and now they're like, we we have to do a surgery on him on steady land, or it's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

I also think it was a nod to Paul Bettney or Paul Bentney's character if he dies. Uh-huh. Because if he doesn't survive, then he's dying in the one place he wanted to be at that moment.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Beautiful, beautiful. So he does a surgery on himself. Hard to watch, honestly. Yeah. Because you can't really see what's going on, but you see enough of it, and you're just getting the reactions of everyone. And even like Captain Aubrey is kind of like, ugh. He's getting a little woozy. He was like, I'm fine, and then everyone's like, We're not fine. While he's recovering, they start like finding crucial details. Um, so the acron was designed differently than other ships, um, and it's faster because of its construction. They can't beat it with speed, they have to beat it with a strategy. And they notice that the back of the boat is weak, just like any other boat. This becomes like the turning point where the movie goes from Aubrey trying to outrun it to start planning to outsmart them instead of outrun them.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Right. Kind of lure them in and get them in a position that they want them to be in. Yeah. Get the French in a position that the British want them to be in.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

When Aubrey realizes that they need to outsmart the the French, he decides to disguise the the surprise as a whaling ship to lure the Akron into range because it needs to be closer for them to do any damage. They need to board the ship. Badass.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Super.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Um, so he lights a fire to get the smoke going, has everyone disguise themselves, and all the like officers and captains and lieutenants are like disguising themselves in ragged clothes or hiding below deck so they can go running to get onto the ship. So once they get close enough, they want to attack in the British way. Surprise attack, boom, get them, nail them.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

God is AS.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Um, the final battle is really brutal and chaotic again, like the opening battle. Um, it's got boarding combat this time, which I thought was really cool. So they're trying to take the mast down, they have their grappling hooks and everything ready to go to get on the other ship. Um, lots of cannon fire at point blank range, which was really cool. Um, I want to point out the hand-to-hand fighting in this movie because I think the hand-to-hand fighting was my biggest point of what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

It at the time of watching the movie, while watching it, I thought all the sword fighting was really fucking sloppy and didn't look good. It wasn't polished, it wasn't what you're normally seeing. And when I sat with it longer, I went, none of how many of these guys are fully trained in sword fighting? Yeah. We're used to seeing Will Turner, who's practiced every single day to get the moves right, or um, you know, the the Hollywood like fucking fencing kind of style. But this was very gritty, and like they were just trying their friggin' best to not get stabbed.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

And you don't know who's alive and who's dead. And the only way they can tell each other apart is by little rags they tied around their arms. I couldn't pay attention to any of them.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

So I had, I don't know how you felt, but it was like, I'm waiting for this to end to see who won.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

We didn't we didn't say it already, but we're past it technically, but we can go back real fast. When they get onto the ship, though, and they think they won, and then they get ambushed, it was like a double ambush going on.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yeah, and the guy gets shot in the head.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah. Um, crazy shit. He let his guard down.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yep, because he got excited. Um, but yeah, so the fight's going on, everything's back and forth, and uh Captain Aubrey is looking for the captain of the ship because they they're winning at this point, and he goes down to to the infirmary on the ship, and there's a guy dressed as the captain on the table, dead, bleeding out, and the surgeon says, I did everything I could to save him. He wanted you to have this sword, the captain's sword, and he takes it as a win. Right, doesn't kill prematurely, doesn't kill the surgeon. The movie ends with the sneaky twist. I did not put it together at first. I didn't either think about it, and I didn't get it until the very last moments of the movie, you know. Um, so the French captain might still be alive, and it might have been that surgeon because Paul Bentney tells him when they get back to the ship and he's appointed a new captain to the to the Acaron, and he goes, Uh someone from the ship said that their surgeon died a month ago from fever. And you just see the the wheels turn in, and he goes, he basically is like, oh fuck. Um and that's where we get the like, I'm sorry about your bird. It's flightless though, right? Yeah, yeah, it'll be there when we get back. Yeah, so he was disguised as the surgeon. Um, so instead of finally taking a break, uh, they turn the ship around to continue the chase. And then the movie ends.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Did you know this movie was supposed to be a series?

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Yeah, if it was based on books. This was based on three of the books.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, it was supposed to be like a three-part series as well, but then just didn't I think Pirates of the Caribbean didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Pirates of the Caribbean kind of took all the wind from its glory. Yeah. I'm sorry, it took the wind from its sales. Um, anyways, um, so yeah, despite being a beloved cult classic, the movie underperformed financially compared to expectations. Fans have waited for a sequel for over 20 years. I don't think it's coming.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Uh, and many modern filmmakers consider it one of the greatest practical action films ever made because so little CGI was used. I think they just use CGI to remove stuff and not really add anything. Let's start with my my final thoughts. Go for it. Um, so I don't think this movie's really about war itself, I think it's about obsession and how it can corrupt leadership and friendship, but also I think it's about the survival under pressure. Um I do want to point out the um the violin duets going on. Kind of kind of stops the pacing of this movie a little bit, but uh when you really think about this movie is about dudes friends, dudes doing dude stuff.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

I did not expect to enjoy this movie as much as I did. Um, I did say in um the Pirates of the Caribbean episode that this movie came out the same year, but feels significantly older than Pirates of the Caribbean. Right. The color uh and like just the way it was shot and the the camera movement and the direction that way seems pretty modern, but there was something about the color grading and the editing and the pacing that made this movie feel like an 80s movie almost, uh, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. There, like I said, there were two moments where I remember pulling out my phone and putting it back, which tells me the pacing might be a little slow at times. But when when I really thought about this movie more, there were more moments where I was on the edge of my seat where I was sitting up paying direct attention to what was going on. I made breakfast before the movie and didn't touch the breakfast the entire movie. I think there's a lot of emotional depth. I think it was really, really well directed and really well acted. Um you can feel the emotion in in every every actor from Paul Bettany like being really bummed that his friend isn't taking his side. Right. Uh, because his, I mean, to to put it not nicely, uh, his feelings were hurt. He's not he's putting his feelings above everyone else's. Right. But that scene where he comes up and he's dressed to go on like expedition and he's got his little hat on, and they're not going. And they're not going. I'm like, throw a tantrum, my guy. Right. Fucking scream at him or something.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

The way that every adult interacts with the kids is um, I don't know, it's really nice. Like they the way that they interact with the children on the ship, the ones that they're training to be captains in the future or lieutenants or whatever is is admirable, honestly. Um, the scene with the the oldest one who starts feeling the paranoia of everyone going against him, and they're blaming him for all the bad luck that they're having. Um, and he goes up to the to the deck and grabs a cannonball and jumps into the water. That's the perfect cannonball.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

I see.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I had to make a joke about it because it is so freaking sad. Like that whole segment is really dark and it's quiet, and it's you can just feel the anxiety in this guy, the entire like moments leading up to it. I knew he was gonna do it, but when you see it, I didn't think we were gonna see it the way we saw it. Yeah. And he does it in front of the youngest lieutenant, the one who got his arm cut off, right? And you're just like, why would you scar that kid?

SPEAKER_02 38:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

But on the other side, it's like, dude, everyone on that ship was against this guy.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Everyone's lost respect for him except for the captain. The captain and the the lieutenant, the kids, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

But even like the harshness of Aubrey towards him, trying to convince him to like step up and show some authority. It wasn't it was harsh but not mean. It was like ripping the band-aid off. Like, dude, come on. But that's why I was saying I think Russell Crowe is like perfect in this movie. He might not have the the depth that we're looking for. You know, we read some of the reviews and things like that. He might only have two faces, but the entire time he's trying to be the leader of this huge crew, and he's lost so many people, and he's trying his best not to lose any more, but also respect the flag that he sails under. At the end of the day, rating this movie is really hard. I gave it four stars on Letterboxd, but my BJ in the morning ultimate movie watching list review, I'm gonna give it a oh god, it's so difficult. Cause I an eight sounds good, but I really liked it. But when I think about Pirates of the Caribbean, that's more fun to watch. And I gave that one a nine.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

I'm gonna give this one an eight. I'm gonna solid eight. Uh, I think an eight's a great movie. I think it's a movie I will watch again. For sure. But it's not one I'm like planning to watch again.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

It's someday, if it comes up, maybe I'll watch it again. Because I want to see some of these things I might have missed. I wanna I want to feel those emotions again. Um, or you know, as we're getting hyped up for uh Assassin's Creed uh Black Flag, which I'm gonna make you play. Um I kind of wanted to play. It's not multiplayer, but it's gonna be fun. Um, but yeah, I'm gonna give it an eight. It's got me hyped for more pirate stuff. I want to watch more pirate things, I wanna do more pirate stuff. Yeah, pirates are dope, man. And like the naval combat in this is sick, and it's it's scary, but not like a horror movie scary, but it does have that monster in the house type of feel, so so it's an eight for you, yeah. Yeah, it's an eight. So did I talk enough?

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Uh I think you said plenty. I think you said enough for the both of us. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

What's your review?

SPEAKER_01 41:22

But I think that I also gave this movie an eight. Nice. Um, we didn't do the thing where we say the numbers at the same time like last time, but I think there's a lot about this movie that you know could have brought it up and down for me. Yeah. Um, especially with like the pacing and certain things that didn't need to be in the movie. You know, like there are things like like the the feasting scenes and like I guess it could we could have still gotten our point across without those. But it is in the movie to show the ship living of these people and like the two different sides of the of you know night and day, you know. Oh, at during the day we're at war, and at night we're we still have to be human. Um but with the amount of times that I was confused about certain things had me conflicted. And uh I'm sticking with the eight. Okay. Uh so it's an eight. I think it's a great it's an eight. It's an eight. Eight's great. And I think it's a it's a great movie, and I'm really surprised that nobody that we know have has ever that's what I'm saying, yeah. Sa said anything about this movie if they've seen it.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

And if they haven't seen it, they need to go watch it. Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Have you commenters, listeners, viewers? Um put it down in the comments. Let us know if you've seen this movie because I feel I do feel like Pirates of the Caribbean probably just barreled through this movie. Like this movie came out months after, and I'm guaranteeing everyone was like, another pirate movie? I don't want that. It's not a pirate movie, it's like the opposite side of a pirate movie. You know, it's it's yeah, I get it. America doesn't want to root for the Brits, but like do it, get over it, man. Um, it was a great time. I I enjoyed it. I think, yeah, if you've seen it, go let us know in the comments. Tell us all about it. Uh I send us some fan mail. There's a button down below in the the show notes that says send us fan mail. Um, that's an anonymous way that you can submit messages to us. Send it. Uh talk all the shit you want, dude. Or not. You know, tell us cool stuff. Tell us about your life, tell us where you're listening from, right? Tell us which pirate movie of these two is your favorite. Yeah. Cause I could see that some people might like this way more than Pirates of the Caribbean. And it's solely because of the disnification of the pirate movie.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

The person who put the bad comment on pirates should go watch this movie.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

About how they wanted the the the realistic shit movie. This is the movie for the movie. Fucker. Um but Juan, it is that point of the two parts of our episodes of 2003 where we're gonna spin the wheel to find out the next movie we're gonna watch. Right. And the one after that. Right. So the next two movies we're gonna watch. What year are you hoping for? Because we've done we've kind of teetered around 2000 lately.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

I'm sticking 90s.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

I'm 90s through and through. And if anyone wants to suggest um maybe like wild cards for spinning the wheel, uh, I'm taking notes for something in the future. So if you have an idea to like add some chaos to our wheel spins, let me know because I'll it'll be in the consideration jar. Right, for sure. Uh, because we have some fun stuff planned. Um, but why don't we go ahead uh and spin the wheel? I don't care. I'm just having fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

I'm having fun too.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Um regardless, I'm having fun, but I wanna have 90s fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

I think you know what I want to watch.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Space game.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

No, but now you do. Now I do.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Yeah. Alright, let's spin it.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Uh-huh. Spinning? It is going.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

And it is so close.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

But it looks like 2021.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

2021. Have we done 2021 already?

SPEAKER_01 45:38

I don't think so. You know what's funny is our worst-rated movies is from the 2020.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

I wonder why. Um, have movies gotten worse? Let's see. Okay, so um, I think what we should do. Oh, this is gonna be tough. Um, the first movie on the list, Mortal Kombat. Seen it. I have not. Uh Dune Part 1. Seen it. I have not. Spider-Man No Way Home. I've never seen never seen it. Never seen it. Uh The Black Phone. Seen it. Um The Last Duel. I have not seen this. It's got Matt Damon, Adam Driver. I have not seen it. I guess we're watching it. The Suicide Squad. Seen it. Don't look up. Uh Free Guy? Seen it. Eternals. Seen it. Seen it. Shang-Chi. Uh Sing Two. Seen it. Zack Snyder's Justice League. Cruella. There's a lot of movies in here. Jungle Cruise, you wanna do another ride, Disneyland ride? See. I haven't seen it. Um there's a ton of movies. Ghostbusters Afterlife. Seen it. We're just going through the entire fucking list now at this point, my guy. Um, so what are we gonna watch for a movie we have seen? I guess they're gonna have to find out. You're gonna have to find out. That's not how we do it. We're gonna tell them. We're gonna tell them what are we watching that we have seen? Spider-Man No Way Home. We could do that. I love that love that movie.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Yeah, let's watch that one. Maybe we won't like it as much. Maybe we watch it because we've never reviewed it.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

We haven't, huh?

SPEAKER_01 47:12

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

No. Yeah, let's watch Spider-Man No Way Home.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

That sounds like a good time.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

We're gonna watch Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

We're gonna watch Spider-Man No Way Home. Because the new Spider-Man movie's coming out.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

It's coming out on my birthday.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

That's soon. Yeah. You're about to be old. Whew. 34. As I am. Don't even bring it up. I'm not currently 34. Um, all right, man. Um, let's end this episode. Let's let these people go. Um next week, join us while we talk. Spider-Man No Way Home. Um, yeah, we haven't talked a Spider-Man movie ever. I don't think so. We've never reviewed a Spider-Man movie. I don't think so. Fun.

unknown 47:49

Fun.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

It's gonna be a good time. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of BJ in the morning. If you haven't already, please drop a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, whatever you listen to your podcasts on, because it helps us out. Uh, and then go check out our Instagram at BJ in the morning underscore. There we go, because someone else is gonna have the BJ in the morning podcast. Um, because sometimes we post stuff. Um, shout out to us going to uh Tucson Comic Con at the end of this year, so stick around um for more updates on that as we get closer to the dates. We might have some cool stuff planned out. We don't know yet. We haven't really talked about it because we just got the thing. Tell me where we're going. We'll figure it out. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of BJ in the morning. My name is Brendan.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

And I'm Juan. And we'll talk to you next time.