Well, I thought the movie was just fine. Certainly not an adaptation of one particular book, but rather an amalgam of incidents and situations from several books in O'Brian's series. That seems reasonable enough to me, as the series is really just one long story, very episodic, with a core of characters continuing over many books plus others who appear for shorter times.   I thought the photography was great, and I liked the music, too. I do agree with artbrooks that some of the dialog was hard to hear.

I agree with O'Meara and artbrooks about the portrayal of the Maturin character – much too one-dimensional, and they left out any hint of his intelligence activities, which I think was one of the more interesting aspects of the books. But I can understand why all that was left out. I do think they made a bit too much of his complaining to Jack about going ashore. I don't remember them getting into quite such an argument about it in the books, though he was clearly disappointed on many occasions. Maybe they felt they had to make a big deal of it, to emphasize the irony of Maturin being the one to locate the enemy during a bird-watching foray.

LadyJean, just to set the record straight, in the books Maturin chewed coca leaves (as in cocaine), not cocoa, from which chocolate is made. For a long time in the books, he is also addicted to laudanum, which is the alcoholic tincture of opium. The addictive side of his personality in the books is just one more aspect that made him such a fascinating and complex character, which didn't come across in the movie.

I don't recall any shanties being used as work songs in the movie (though I think a couple of might have been sung when the men were at leisure), and that is correct – shanties were not sung on naval ships. In the books, the only time shanties were used for work was in "The Thirteen-Gun Salute," when some Orkneymen used a distinctive chant which fascinated Aubrey. At that time the Surprise was sailing as a Letter of Marque, not a Naval vessel, so Jack let them continue. (We discussed that episode in this thread).

Anyway, if you like action, see this movie! And if you think sailors had an easy life, this will set you straight.

Cheers, Nancy