<sarcasm>
Before I saw this movie, I never knew that hobbits sailed the high seas to fight in 19th century British wars.
</sarcasm>

Anyway, a fun movie. Unlike Ebert, I'm not going to go so far as to hail it as the second coming though. It felt a bit slow in parts, though some might consider that a strength. Had I been more emotionally into the characters (there are many), my opinion about that might have been different.

The Captain, played by Russel Crowe, is a clever and determined leader hunting a tactically superior French ship to attempt to stop it and prevent the war from expanding into the Pacific. In pursuing this quest, he uses all sorts of quirky and amusing tricks in an ongoing cat and mouse game on the ocean.

They face all sorts of challengs from the weather, tour around the Galapagos Islands (at which point, a conflict between the captain and the ship's doctor, who are very good friends with one another despite their disagreements, comes to a head), and try to outsmart the French.

Overall, it's an interesting tale. Highly recommended for those into seafaring adventures. If nonstop "ship on the lonely, desolate ocean" scenes tend to make you emotionally seasick, then you'll be glad when the movie is over and you can walk on populated land again. As for me? I think I'm somewhere in between.