Call number
DVD-DRAMA 17
Collection
Publication
20th Century Fox (2004)
Description
In the 5th-century B.C., King Leonidas of Sparta has only his 300 bodyguards to stand with him against an invasion by the 60,000 men of the Persian army. Their heroic stand against the invasion gives the other Greek city-states time to organize a large fighting force and ultimately defeat the Persians. (NR).
Subjects
Media reviews
Slate
As played by the admittedly handsome and intriguing Paul Bettany, Maturin is no more than a good doctor with finer feelings and a passion for natural history. At one point he is made to say in an English accent that he is Irish—but that's the only hint we get. In the books, for example, he
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quarrels badly with Aubrey about Lord Nelson's support for slavery. But here a superficial buddy movie is born out of one of the subtlest and richest and most paradoxical male relationships since Holmes and Watson...
In one respect the action lives up to its fictional and actual inspiration. This was the age of Bligh and Cook and of voyages of discovery as well as conquest, and when HMS Surprise makes landfall in the Galapagos Islands we get a beautifully filmed sequence about how the dawn of scientific enlightenment might have felt. It wasn't that long a stretch between the Bounty and the Beagle, and Peter Weir conveys the idea while abolishing Maturin's interest in the enlightenment as a human rather than naturalistic project. The whiskers may sometimes look ferocious, and the role of Killick the manservant as rendered by David Threlfall was so splendid that I thought at first it was Eric Idle under another coating of whiskers, but the point is lost. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member cljacobson
High Seas adventure- the fate of the empire rest on the shoulders of one man... After a sneak attack by a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his vessel, Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey is torn between his duty and friendship as he embarks on a thrilling, high stakes chase across two oceans to
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capture and destroy the enemy at any cost. 130 min Show Less
LibraryThing member Lucky-Loki
A solid film with a beautifully immersive depiction of a British naval ship in the Napoleonic wars, and with a good many excellent actors populating the deck. The film is also a bit of an accomplishment on the sheer basis of (seemingly effortlessly) spending the entire first half of the running
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time without even seeing land at any point, and nearly being over entirely before we hear as much as a line of dialogue spoken by someone not on board the ship. This really puts you in the boat with the crew, so to speak, making the ship your world much as it is theirs. Frequent life and death stakes aside, though, it is for the most part a somewhat languid character drama, which perhaps lessens the enjoyment for the average viewer. But there is definitely a sense of forward momentum even so, and many moments of humanity, humour and heart to enjoy on the way, if you manage to let yourself be engrossed enough in the story to care about any of it. So, in short, if a character-driven Napoleonic naval story is up your alley, I suspect you'll like this rather a lot, but if that sounds a bit dreary, this movie is unfortunately unlikely to convince you otherwise. Show Less
LibraryThing member comfypants
B (Good). Great action and adventure, with dull interpersonal drama sprinkled throughout.
(Sep. 2023)
(Sep. 2023)
Awards
UPC
024543114307