Master and Commander 4K UHD Review

Book-ended by enthralling, old Hollywood-like visual scale and action, Master and Commander relives an era of film history through a contemporary lens. The enormity of two ships battling side-by-side sells this movie; trailers were filled with those images in 2003. They’ve lost none of their reality in the intervening decades.

2003 was a story of two boat movies. Master and Commander was the year’s second, the first being Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, a luxurious slice of summer cinema, but lacking the grounded majesty of its Russell Crowe-starring rival. The two films couldn’t differentiate themselves more outside of their sea-faring.

Master and Commander became a masculine meme, the ultimate dad movie

Master and Commander thoughtfully probes the relationships of men at war, not just at sea. It shows them playing, eating, working, and in terror. Everyone aboard accepts their possible fate and silently lives with that reality. Discipline is everything, held even as their prideful captain sails them away from food and water to seek out the French ship that bested him.

At the film’s core are two men, vastly separated by education and wants, with Crowe’s Captain Jack Aubrey often confiding in the ship’s doctor Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany). Their relationship becomes this movie, more than the cannon fire and nighttime stormy seas that thrash the boat. They test one another as friends do, but stand beside one another in their joined mission. Their camaraderie comes to represent the entire crew, always willing to come together for the common goal.

Through the years, Master and Commander became a masculine meme, the ultimate dad movie, which used to mean Predator or Rambo. Times change, and the ascension of Master and Commander to that role isn’t because of muscular movie stars and bloodshed. Certainly, the graphic battles and anesthetic-free surgeries suggest a toughness, but it’s the bonding that makes this movie work – a bonding few men have access to in modern society.

There’s a primal quality to Master and Commander, a feeling of belonging to a cause with others who feel the same. We’ve lost that in our culture. Using movies like this as memes feels like desperation for any connection, whether that be over the seas or internet.

This isn’t a great encode by Disney. In fact, it’s often terrible. Master and Commander is flush with digital noise, and grain spikes in the ship’s darkened underbelly or in the fog doesn’t help. Grain simply doesn’t resolve well.

That said, this is an improvement over the Blu-ray, showing greater resolution and definition with overall excellent fidelity. All of the sweaty close-ups appear exceptional here, drawing out the finest details. Even something simple like the text on a map stands out as defined. Bungled grain structure or not, Master and Commander still delivers.

Often using limited light for visual accuracy, black levels frequently crush. However, they also deliver on their depth, and loss of detail in the shadows or not, there’s still dimension to the image. Natural sunlight doesn’t stand out in this Dolby Vision pass, a bit dull even, which matches the aesthetic of the dry color too.

Phenomenal. No surprise, one of the great home audio mixes is bettered by this Atmos mix, even beyond expectations. The wood boat is a marvelous audio conduit, with people walking above and their footsteps properly placed in the heights. Wood creaks and water rushes through every speaker, with constant ambient effect. When the action starts, cannonballs shriek past, their impact creating aural bliss as wood shatters. I’ve never heard water splashes better than in this mix.

Equally bold is the low-end, powerful and room shaking. Fired cannons feel appropriately heavy, adding weight to this already perfect mix. Any combat scene earns a reference stamp, as does a storm sequence with waves roaring as they hit the hull.

Disney/Fox port over the Blu-ray’s deleted scenes, and two pop-up tracks, one historical, one on locations/maps. To note, these are on the Blu-ray only.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 41 full resolution uncompressed 4K screen shots grabbed directly from the UHD: