8/10
MASTER AND COMMANDER (2003). One of my favourites. Partly because I love Patrick O’Brian’s books, and this is a much better film adaptation that I expected; partly because Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany are so good as Jack and Stephen (though Bettany is as unlike Maturin physically as you can imagine); and partly because the film manages to convey the sense of life on board an early 19th century ship of the Royal Navy so eloquently and lovingly. Definitely a big screen film.
