Well I needn't have worried about "Master and Commander", it was magnificent. My default attitude towards film adaptations of much-loved books is hostility. But this film really won me over. I was worried that Russell Crowe was just going to do his moody killbot routine, but he actually managed to produce a passable impersonation of a real human being. And Paul Bettany, although not small and ugly enough for Stephen Maturin, did get his pale unnerving gaze, his social awkwardness, and his ability to inspire devotion from unlikely people. Of course a film based on 20 novels has to leave many things out, but I marvelled at how much was included - the frequent boozy dinners, Jack Aubrey's heavy-handed sense of humour, his love of clambering about the rigging, the musical evenings in the great cabin, Killick's insolence and efficiency, Stephen's manic enthusiasm for natural history, his ragings at the ceaseless hurry of naval life, and his prickly hostility to authoritarianism. And the ship, the ship.....recreated in all it's beautiful , overcrowded complexity. HMS Surprise was the real star of the film.....

And I have to mention the superb soundtrack, with it's incredibly evocative use of water and wind sounds - huge windy silences as the camera soars away from the ship to take in the immensity of the twilight ocean.

Yes, I liked it. Give me a week and I will probably be back in the cinema to see it again.....