salon review of master & commander

[xatalantax]

salon has a review of the movie that's pretty good - I wouldn't have expected a gushing review from them, but this one does gush. [except I think they have the interpretation of the jack/blakeney scene all wrong.]

not posting it here since it's on salon premium, but I think you can still watch an ad and get a "daily pass" to their premium content.

Comments

[latemodel.livejournal.com]

A while back, you posted a while back that you hadn't seen good reviews of M&C; I was surprised, because all of the ones I had seen (Salon, Phoenix, Dig) were glowing. Were you expecting a general thumbs-down, or an off-target interpretation?

Also, I wouldn't have pegged you for a Salon reader...

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

Now that I've looked at more reviews, most of them do seem to be good. (I scanned a bunch on rottentomatoes.com).

I thought there might be a mixture of anti-Russell Crowe feeling and objections to so much attention to the imperialistic British empire and war-centered stuff, plus I thought some people might think it was boring unless they focused heavily on the action (I believe I wrote that before I actually saw the movie). And there was some of that in the bad reviews (someone comparing the ship captain to W in his ill-advised war on terror, blah blah blah). But as you said, most of the ones I've seen since the official release have been glowing. Have you seen it?

I try to keep an eye on salon, when I'm managing to keep an eye on anything in the outside world :)

But actually I got the salon review through a mailing list.

[latemodel.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it (yet). I don't see a lot of movies (although with the Harvard discount, I'm not sure why I don't see more), and I don't usually go in for action or adventure pics. Which I would have guessed this was, from the publicity, but the fond reviews from, well, everyone are making me think I might go see it.

As for anti-W cracks in the reviews, I was amused that the Phoenix review holds its bile in check where it reads, "[t]rue to the anti-Gallic spirit of our times and the Napoleonic Wars of the period..." I mean, this is the Phoenix, not exactly a booster for anti-French sentiment, and having made that opening, they're letting it slide. I guess that means they liked the movie. :)