As my holiday gift to other upstart film critics, looking to shake things up with an oblique, pithy assessment of a film they probably haven't even seen, I submit the following public-domain reviews of Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.

• See sick.
  
• Ship wreck.
  
• Naut good.
  
• More anchor, less stanker.
  
• Interminable naval gazing.
  
• Crowe's messed.
  
• Man over-bored.
  
• Shallow end.
  
• Crap-sized.
  
• Ketch it on cable.
  
• Shit's ahoy!
  
• Too many buoys.
  
• Sea suck.
  
• Unfathomable.
  
• Mizzenmast? More like Snoozin-fast!!
  
• Peter Weir should keel himself.
  
• You'll heave, ho.
  
• Headstay, mind wander.
  
• A hollow vessel full of bland seamen.
  
• Master & Commander teaches us we've been wrong all along. The world IS flat.