Surprisingly incoherent and boring

An Exercise In Nonsense

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The first Hornblower film is based on the books by CS Forester, however it is clear that some of the flavour of the books is hard to replicate on the screen especially on television when frankly to mount naval battles and widescreen sea based shots require a Hollywood style budget.Set in 1793, in The Even Chance, we see a young 17 years old midshipman, Horatio Hornblower (Ioan Gruffudd) getting to grips with the navy, he feels the full effect of sea sickness but even worse bullying from senior officer Jack Simpson (Dorian Healy.)Luckily for Hornblower when Britain goes to war with the French he is transferred to another ship led by Captain Pellew (Robert Lindsay.) Under Pellew Hornblower thrives, his crew respects him, he shows bravery, tenacity, cunning and intelligence.However it is not long before Hornblower duels with the sadistic and despicable Simpson.This is a rip roaring adventure but I did find the script and some of the scenes a little cheesy. Some of the staging looked a little sub-par even for television but at least it was not dull.

I was frankly not expecting much because my exposure to Ioan Gruffudd has been exclusively the dismal Fantastic Four movies. I was stunned to learn that he can actually act -- or could once, anyway -- and his performance completely carries this film. The rest of the cast, for the most part unfamiliar to me as an American viewer, do a fine job as well. I would make something of an exception for Dorian Healy, but I fault him less for his performance than the script for giving him so little to work with other than moustache-twirling villainy. That's a minor nitpick, though. The acting is solid across the board, with a great supporting performance by Robert Lindsay. In general, the action moves along briskly, the characters are well-defined, and the overall production values are surprisingly high. There are a few weak special effects where the budget shows a bit, but for the most part this is a really well-mounted production. The sets and costumes are top-notch, and a lot of attention seems to have been paid to period detail. It would be easy to believe this was a big-screen theatrical production if not for the periodic commercial fade-outs (which, by the way, were uniformly ignored on the telecast I watched -- is it really that difficult, Ovation?) Oh, and for other American viewers, the reason Kennedy looks so familiar but you can't quite place him is because he buried his natural accent so successfully on Battlestar Galactica.At any rate, I highly recommend this film and now look forward to seeing the others in the series. I can only marvel at whatever happened to Horatio Hornblower to turn him into such a lackluster Reed Richards. Perhaps a lifetime of attempting to spell "Ioan Gruffudd" has just worn him down.

I certainly had my doubts when I rented the first volume of this series - apparently called "The Duel" here in the United States and "The Even Chance" in its native Britain. A rose by any other name...It is really good. The main character Horatio is played immaculately by Ioan Gruffudd (I would really like to hear how that is pronounced.) It is hard not to compare it to the movie Master and Commander. I found that movie very entertaining, and also very worthy in its own right, but I have read the books by Patrick O'Brian, and how can a movie do justice to that? I mean, really.I have not read the Forester books, so I cannot comment on the adaptation. I CAN compare the overall experience of seeing the Hornblower films to, well, everything else I have seen about similar subjects, and it fares well indeed. In fact, there has been nothing better overall. I enjoyed everything they did with it. I have to say, I thought it looked a little cheap at first - but I hesitated to even mention that because it was more than made up for in authenticity and raw acting.I only mention it now so that if anyone reading this sees that, they are forewarned - it isn't special effects heavy, it's more genuine. And the scope and range of it is far deeper than anything else yet (about the same subject.) OK, now that Hornblower's praises have been sung again, rightfully, I just want to mention a highly under-read series that I hope some of you will pick up on, by the name of Flashman. I don't really compare Hornblower to Flashman directly, but they are both historical fiction (and I suppose military.) And I have to say, George MacDonald Fraser has given us something special in Flashman, in that his main character has serious and admitted flaws, unlike Horatio. As far as I know, no movies have been made from that series, but anyone who likes the Hornblower adventures as much as I do might like these too.

I'm quite sure Forester would have approved.I think that almost any novel (or series of novels) which achieves 'favorite' status is at a competitive disadvantage when turned into a film. The most notable exceptions are works written, either consciously or not, with a screenplay in mind (I'm convinced Michael Crichton ONLY writes screenplays).I think it safe to assume that C. S. Forester was not writing with the screen, either large or small, in mind so I have to say that this series is hands down the best series of films (they're not really a miniseries because they're not really interdependent) ever produced from another media.The series is well paced, the characters well developed and wonderfully cast, the action scenes excellently shot, but to my way of thinking the series best feature is the development and maturation of the character of Hornblower himself..I've always been a fan of 'coming of age' films (my all time favorite – A Bronx Tale), but to watch the growing relationships which Hornblower develops with Mathews, Styles, Captain Foster, Taping, and particularly with Captain/Admiral Sir Edward Pellew is truly a joy.Ioan Gruffudd's portrayal produces an honorable man, a character which every guy should secretly want to be and which every woman should want to hook up with. This series is a 'must have' for every film library. Ten stars!