Steven has such an endearing request: He is asking us readers of the Aubrey-Maturin series why we like the books.
I’ll be coming back to this question myself over the next few weeks. Meanwhile, I’m going to cross-post a review I did of the recent film that touches on some of the things I like about the books.
This was originally posted at Popcorn Critics on February 27, 2004
It’s a rare occasion that I get to see a movie in the theater, and a really rare occasion that I get to go with my husband (this was the first movie we’ve seen together in an actual theater since January 2001!) My husband and I both like historical movies; I am also on my first reading through the Patrick O’Brian series that inspired the books (and am completely enthralled.) So I was pleased that we were able to get out and see this on the big screen.
I liked it okay, but I was disappointed. I wanted to like it more.
As far as spectacle and entertainment value, if you like sea spray and dramatic helicopter shots and storms and meticulous attention to costumes and period detail and lots and lots of battle, then this is the movie for you. The movie is a cracking good adventure. It does an amazing job of evoking what life must have been like on a crowded, dangerous ship, and showing us the bravery and resourcefulness of the men who sailed those ships.
But in the O’Brian books, the adventure is only the beginning. Their special appeal is in wit, their humor, their depiction of the human drama, and it’s here that the movie almost completely fails. It’s a shame, because the casting of the secondary characters — Pullings, Bonden, Killick, Padeen, each with their own vivid little quirks — is spot-on. I was laughing out loud at some of the little jokes and perfections. But the heart of the books, the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin, is completely lost.
A big part of the problem is the inappropriate casting of the two leads. Russell Crowe’s Aubrey is 100% action hero, with none of Jack’s Aubrey’s goofy charm. He might have come closer, though, with a different Maturin. Paul Bettany is physically wrong for the part — tall, fair, youthful and handsome instead of short, dark, and mysterious. Maturin’s Irish accent seems to have gotten lost somewhere too, as well as his gift for languages.
The affection between the two characters is nowhere to be seen. They are seen together at their music, but we are shown none of the funny little exchanges between the two, so that when we are treated to a favorite line from the books, such as one of Aubrey’s mangled proverbs, the humor is lost and it makes no sense. Many of their scenes together end up instead as cheesy little debates that strongly reminded me of a different captain and a different doctor: Dammit, Jim! You can’t keep cracking on like this! Hang Starfleet, Bones — I know what I’m doing!
Part of the problem is that the movie is a sort of careless puree of at least four books chosen from the first two-thirds of the series, combined with some schmaltzy Hollywoodish additions, which means that many of the characters’ words and actions make no sense. Jack comes up with tactics that we are asked to believe are totally new ideas, but in fact have been part of his bag of tricks from the very first book. Stephen, in particular, comes out with some howlers — questions that make sense when he asked them in the third book but not in the eighth, and speeches that make him seem like an amnesia victim who has forgotten that he is on a ship of the Royal Navy. And yet we are asked to believe that he knows his way around this ship and is an experienced ship’s doctor. Instead of coming off as a lovable absent-minded professor type (“What a fellow you are, Stephen”) he seems arrogant and obtusely self-centered.
Another reason it’s hard to like these characters is that it’s hard to catch their names. The movie is action, action, action from the first scene, and introductions to the characters is not a priority, yet we’ve got about ten people in the gunroom we’re supposed to keep straight. You thought keeping your LOTR characters in order was difficult? At the end of the movie I was still unclear as to who was a lieutenant and who was a mid, and what some of their names were — and I’ve read the books!
Dialogue can be hard to catch, as well, in part because of the thick English accents and in part because of all the stuff going on. Subtitles on the DVD (which is supposed to come out next month) might be helpful for some.
The pretentious Hollywoodisms got annoying quickly. The swelling sad music when the captain must make a dreadful decision, the affecting farewell between two friends when you Just Know one of them’s not going to make it back (just like the red-shirted ensign on that other captain’s ship)…. For all this movie’s loving attention to grimy detail, someone forgot that it’s unlikely that a cello left propped on a chair, balanced on a peg, is going to stay that way through three days on a sailing ship. And as for the cheesy music at the ending, it’s a good think I didn’t buy a soda, because I’d have been sorely tempted to heave it at the screen.
I hear Russell Crowe wants to do a sequel. I’m not holding my breath; at this writing the movie is still $30 million in the red. If there is a sequel, I hope they recast Stephen and get a little more organized. I wonder if it’s even possible to capture these books in a single feature film. Maybe A&E could take a crack at a miniseries someday.
So, overall, a good movie, but one that should have been better. If you enjoy this movie and are inspired to try the books, it’s all to the good.
If you want to give the books a try, please allow me to suggest starting with Master and Commander and following quickly with Post Captain.