After witnessing the landslide LOTR caused at the last Academy Awards, one would think that this movie was either robbed or otherwise used as a sacrificial lamb to a movie that had to finally get its proper dues. I tend to go with the latter, but I do not think this movie was robbed; it just wasn’t good enough. Not good enough to steal the most important Oscars away from LOTR, but also not a dead give-away if LOTR wouldn’t have been part of the list.

That immediately points out the biggest problem with this movie: what was all the fuss about it in the first place? This is a neat movie, however nothing special and certainly not typical Oscar material. It would almost seem that they deliberately put this movie against LOTR as they knew it would undisputedly sweep away all prizes. But hey, this award-talk is too trivial to judge a movie upon, but it might explain all the nominations it got. Like I said, this movie is adequate and an obvious ode to the swashbuckler genre (Errol Flynn, anyone?) and there is nothing more to it.

The plot is very simple: an English warship get ass-whupped on the Atlantic Ocean by a much stronger French vessel. They are forced to retreat as they are heavily damaged and severely outclassed. The ship’s captain Aubrey (played by Russel Crowe) initially decides that the ship should follow common logic and retreat, but then chooses to repair the ship at sea and follow the Frenchies to the Pacific. Nothing much happens until they finally catch up with their adversary and battle it out for a second time. And that is very much it: just another revenge movie. The aspect that usually makes revenge movies more interesting ‘character development- is not very present here. Aubrey is in fact nothing more than one-dimensional Captain Ahab hunting down his Nemesis, the white whale Moby Dick. It is here where the story doesn’t try to become interesting. We don’t get to delve deep down in the recesses of Aubrey’s soul in order to find out more about his fanatic impetus. They make a half-hearted attempt to paint him as a human being by adding humour and emotion to his character, but is still doesn’t explain his determination.

It has to be said that Crowe puts in a commendable effort, although seems hampered by a shallow story. He doesn’t fall back on his crabby routine playing the cool tough guy. Instead, he tries to embellish it with a daft sense of humour and a taste for playing music. You sometimes get the idea that the whole plot is set up to give way to some splendid imagery. The ships and the battles at full sea look truly incredible and for the first time I have seen near-realistic CGI-water (one of the most difficult things to emulate) in a movie; the Oscar for cinematography was well-deserved. This movie could have done with ‘some’ from that other great naval war movie: Das Boat. In that movie we do feel the rising tension caused by the relentless pursuit of a stronger adversary together with the claustrophobic confines of a (submarine) ship. But M&C never evokes that harrowing feeling and haunting suspense. A missed opportunity, in my opinion.

Call the movie bandwagonesque due to the ample references to other successful historical movies like Pirates of The Caribbean, Gladiator or other sword-wielding movies. Call it even an excuse-movie used to conveniently shower a certain aforementioned trilogy with plenty of awards. What remains is a entertaining movie which could have been much more than just canon fodder.

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