... But even more worth reading

The fans of Patrick O'Brian's sea-faring novels awaited the movie version with just as much anticipation and trepidation as did the 12-year-olds lining up for Harry Potter. Fortunately, director Peter Weir and superstar actor Russell Crowe, who plays Jack Aubrey, are both O'Brian fans who respect the material just as Peter Jackson respects The Lord of the Rings.

But books and movies are two different animals. The imagination is far less limited than the silver screen. A book with hundreds of pages that can take weeks to read can do far more with a story than a tale that has to be finished within two hours in a multiplex.

The title of the film combines those of two different novels, which will prove confusing to those who run to the bookstore after watching the movie. Master and Commander is the first of the 20 books in the series, introducing Jack in his first command, a tiny, unseaworthy vessel that he nevertheless turns into a scourge of the Mediterranean. We also see how he meets Stephen Maturin, a ship's surgeon and naturalist, whose nerd-like personality does not prevent him from also being a secret agent who makes 007 seem like an amateur.