The word of honor is the main thing! This review is like an intermediate, because after watching the first part of this magnificent British “multi-part feature film” and reviewing it, I, with considerable pleasure, watch the sequels and “monitor” them for the growth / fall of the artistic level of the “product” set by it (something like a sell-buy on the international Forex market). Having got acquainted with the third part, I can say with confidence that the bar, with slight fluctuations, still holds. And the director is still the same - Andrew Grieve.
Of course, the main ideas in the Hornblower films are laid down by the author of the novels about him - Forester. But, nevertheless, British filmmakers did everything possible to emphasize them. For example, this film is dominated by the idea “The word of honor is more precious than life.” It is quite rightly and naturally guided by our main character, by chance (deliberate?) having fallen with his team and pseudo-duchess in Spanish captivity. Hornblower is a man of honor (and at the same time the smartest and most calculating sailor of His Majesty’s fleet). And, as they would say now, a democrat (or a liberal, at worst!). That is why he keeps his word (as well as his sailors standing behind him on the mountain): he promised to return to your prison with his own, and it will be so! So it was, and the Spaniards gave the courageous "acting lieutenant" freedom, with gratitude for the salvation of their sailors.
... Yes, “in those days distant, now almost epic” honor and conscience were not just words. They have their own lives, and they have their own. Today, in our bourgeois life, they become anachronisms, “vestiges” (which many figures of Russian culture say and write uneasily). That’s why I think this “series” is especially relevant, namely, for modern youth: look at the “knights without fear and reproach” and try to become like them. At least.
8 out of 10