Horatio Hornblower - The Adventure Continues

The Horatio Hornblower adventure continues indeed in this two DVD package that tells the long but fascinting story of Lt. Hornblower's struggles serving under Captain Sawyer, a once great hero who is now gradually losing his mind and has paranoid delusions. Thus the episode "Mutiny" and the episode "Retribution" tell one continuous story. Captain Sawyer's dementia is soon spotted by all four of his leutenants. HOwever the first senior leutenant is an incompetent, indecisive, timid, careerist. This means that when control of the ship is assumed by the young officers, the new leader is just as problematic in his own way as was Captain Sawyer. Underneath all the bravery and action is an important theme. This theme has to do with loyalty and the strength of loyalty. The old heroic Captain Sawyer has men who have fought for him for years and worship him. Thus, they are not inclined to recognize his growing dementia and are in fact familiar with his robust leadership style. They see the young bright leutenants as upstarts and mutineers. Thus the crisis in strong leadership leads to factions and divisions which weakens the entire enterprise. When Sawyer is replaced by an incompetent,the conflicts continue. The first episode "Mutiny" is very engaging as you see the struggle between Hornblower and Sawyer. However the second episode "Retribution" has a terrific ending with the incredible loyalty of Lt. Archie Kennedy demonstrated for Lt. Hornblower. It is the aspects of dominance, leadership, loyalty, judgement that lies behind these 2 episodes and these films explore these fascinating concepts very well. Of course we get all the daring do of Ioan Gruffudd playing the role of Horatio Hornblower somewhat as if he were an 18th century James Bond, but all the wild dramatics and action add to the underlying theme of loyalty that is the infrastructure of the entire plot. Read more

I think this is the best of the series so far. It is an excellent adaptation of the LT Hornblower book with the follow up written by Forrester (the letter of Admiral Hornblower telling the truth about what happened). The movie develops ship board life more fully and we are made to live on board seeing how each of the different ratings actually lived as opposed to the more sanitised view of the Hornblower with Gregory Peck (which I liked as well but for different reasons) It is an excellent exploration of how damaging a command structure can be if all of the officers are not in sync. Another excellent treatment of this topic is Damn the Defiant with Guiness as the Captain and Bogarde his First Lieutenant. As with Hornblower in general the plot is a bit to pat (Damn the Defiant is probably a better story)but that may be the result of the fact that I first read it more than 30 years ago so it holds no surprizes for me. I thought the battle scenes featuring the ships were nicely done...better than the first ones in the series. They are now using ships appropriate to the time period. (In the first of the series they were nice but looked like they should have been in the Seven Years War.) But I will admit to being a fan of the genre so I will buy anything having to do with wooden ships...this is certainly one I think any other fan should own. Read more

For those of you who enjoyed the old swashbucklers of the 30's and 40's and stars like Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, this movie is perfect for you. This two-movie set continues where the four-part A&E mini-series left off. Hornblower, now the 3rd Lieutenant on a 76 gun ship-of-the-line is put to the test when his captain begins displaying eratic behavior and seeing plots afoot at every turn. The first lieutenant is not up to command, the second lieutenant just shipped aboard and has no information to work with concerning the captain's behavior. It's up to Horatio to hold the crew together and prevent disaster. In the first movie, The Mutiny, Hornblower becomes involved with a mutiny on board His Majesty's ship while at the same time trying to carry out their mission of attacking a Spanish fort during the Napoleonic Wars. In the second movie, Retribution, Hornblower is sent to court-martial facing a death sentence for his role in the mutiny. Ioan Gruffudd and Robert Lindsey give their career's finest performances. Since the movies were made for television, there is no motion picture rating. However, I would rank it at PG-13 as there is scenes of battle and swordplay that result in on screen deaths. Read more

I hardly ever give anything the highest rating possible, but this series gave me pause... The stories were interesting--good lessons about honor and right. But that praise goes to CFForester. The filmmakers didn't try to jazz it up with bad language or nudity. I had seen a few of the movies on television (AnE). My fiance' is a real Trekkie, he compared Horatio to Captain Kirk!! High praise, indeed. The shipping was very prompt- almost always a day early. Amazon is very good at that. Read more

Came on time, DVD's were great. this series is great. Read more

This is a very good Hornblower episiode. Ioan Gruffudd gives another great performance. In it, Hornblower must make decisions for the good of his fellow shipmates and the ship, after the captain has been making bad choices and eventually goes mad. He must show his brave and true duty in the face of danger and violence. He also must face a trial for his actions, which could cost him his life. He never wavies in his decisions and is rewarded in the end with a promotion, which he doesn't feel he deserves. This episiode shows Hornblower at his best and what a true leader he has become. I highly recommend it to watch. Read more