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Archive for October 4th, 2009

eric on Oct 4th 2009 Arts, The, Movies

Sailing through the Horatio Hornblower series

These couple few weeks that Smartz is in Boston, I decided to finally watch the Horatio Hornblower series. This A&E series is actually made up of eight feature-length movies all about the exploits of a fellow named Horatio Hornblower. It takes place in the late 1700s through the early 1800s to the start of the war with Napoleon.

HornblowerThrough this, Hornblower is the center figure and we follow him from the moment he joins the Royal Navy as a Midshipman (sort of a middle-management officer). As the series progresses, he is promoted through the ranks to the rank of Commander. This is often both because of and in spite of his careless bravery.

Ioan Gruffudd plays Horatio, the humble, yet headstrong officer who knows his duty, loves his ship and his men and is loyal to the last. He is most often surrounded by bumbling officers who out-rank him and who he naturally (and humbly) shows up.

It’s difficult to really make the Hornblower series seem as good as it is. All eight movies are very well made (though the first is distractingly shot on video) using full size ships and exotic locations. The stories are fiction, but based around historical events and portrayed with what appears to be a high level of historical accuracy.

It took me years to finally convince myself to watch these. And honesty, I’m glad I did and I’m sorry I sailed through them so quickly. They films are based upon the C.S. Forester novels and I’m sure I’ll be reading them soon enough.

I apologize for this being a fairly crappy review. But seriously, you’ll probably dig this and thank me for suggesting it. Netflix has only the last two films, so try your library (where I found mine), it’s very worth it.

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