The unheard of happened without warning: Mr. Otter and I both had a three day weekend...at THE SAME TIME! It was amazing. Three days off together, what bliss!

And we did actually spend some of it together, including a very nice afternoon when we saw this movie (after he went out and got me a doughnut for breakfast. What a nice badger he is!)

I loved all of these books, and although I wanted to see this movie, was understandably hesitant, given Hollywood's track record for either screwing up or just not getting the point of any given novel that I love...sure, there are some excellent exceptions, one that springs readily to mind is The Princess Bride...but for every gem like that, there are a dozen like the recent Count of Monte-Cristo or the hideous animated Bakshi travesty version of the Lord of the Rings or The Time Machine, now _there_ was a bad one. But I digress.

So I said to Mr. Otter, Let's go to a movie! and gave him a choice of three, and this is the one he picked. Now, as my faithful readers probably know, one of Mr. Otter's other personalities is Historian-on-a-Stick, and so going to any historical movie with him can either be instructive, amusing, or truly awful, depending on the movie and his mood...and then there's Russell Crowe.

I really don't like Crowe at all. He did a good job in A Beautiful Mind and Gladiator; on the other hand, Proof of Life was a real suckeroo, as we say Chez Otter...my contention is that he's only good at movies where his character is kind of clueless and the victim of circumstances, and if he is supposed to pretend to a shred of common sense or ability to figure out what is going on, he really can't pull it off.

So. There we were, the movie started...and it was WONDERFUL. Imagine our surprise when we BOTH liked it very much.

Mr. Otter, who only read a few of the books, loved all the amazingly good period detail...they really got the look of the time and the ships just right. And I was pleased not only with that, but with how much of the background information from the books they managed to work in. No, the relationship between the captain and the doctor isn't as deep and varied as it is in the books, and as with many movies from books (like the 1984 version of Dune) it helps the movie a whole lot if you've read the book(s) first. Still, they did an excellent job, and Russell Crowe was pretty good.

They actually filmed the 10th of the series of books, The Far Side of the World, which has a great plot and a lot of hearty seagoing action, several good plot twists, and the added benefit of keeping anyone from trying to film the whole series of books in order, a good thing in a series where character development is more important than action. Mr. Otter had no trouble with the plot, even not having read the book, and I enjoyed watching it unfold...the shipboard stuff was good, and the sailing scenes almost unbelieveably excellent.

Go see it, buy it when it comes out, enjoy it, it's a winner.