If not for the first 30 seconds of film, I would have been just as content to walk into The Perfect Storm halfway into the movie. As it is, the first 30 seconds of film will only be interesting to me and the handful of people that I work with, because on the left side of the screen you can see a big boat that says Leisure Casino Cruises, which is owned by the company I work for.
For the rest of you, I can only recommend showing up late.
It has become a tradition that all disaster movies have to spend some amount of time getting the audience acquainted with Those Who Are About to Suffer. As usual, there was a tremendous imbalance on the number of hours spent developing a plot and the hours spent on the special effects. Thus, the opening 45 minutes are painful to watch, as George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and the rest of the cast stumble through dialogue so hammy it belongs in a deli. The list of tired clichés is an epic by itself, running the gamut from the handsome loner who's real love is the sea (Clooney), the man getting ready to marry his sweetheart after this One Last Trip (Wahlberg), the divorced father trying to make things right with his son (John C. Reilly), the lovable loser who... well you get the point, as did many of the talented fish extras used in the shooting. To add variety to the movie, there are also some minor scenes with a weatherman, some sailboat manned by a stupid captain, and the Coast Guard.
But like Titanic, once the shit starts to hit the fan, you'll forget about the load of schmaltz the directors just forced you to sit through. Except for one really fake looking shot, the special effects in this movie are practically flawless. Not that I have ever been trapped in a storm at sea to compare with what I saw, but if I ever did have the misfortune to be caught in a hurricane feeding off of two or three different weather formations, this is how I expect it would look. Waves the size of tall buildings thunder and roll with a majestic and inexorable ferocity, killer winds howl and moan, and the world of the sea turns from a gentle, rolling, and calm blue to a hellish black marred only by the white spray and crests churned by the storm. The last hour of the movie had me bolted to my seat, fascinated by the onslaught of Mother Nature. I resented any of the too many times that the movie cuts away to the worried loved ones or minor bits of plot exposition. This is the kind of storm that you could have nightmares about while wishing that someone would make an amusement park ride based on it.
Now I have to admit, that going into this movie I didn't know the outcome. I hadn't heard the whole story and consequently there was quite a bit of tension, as I didn't know if they were going to make it or not. While not on the same scale as someone telling you who Keyser Soze is ahead of time before you see The Usual Suspects, knowing this little tidbit might reduce your enjoyment somewhat.
In summary, the filmmakers produced a brilliant hour of film but packaged it with an hour of distractions. If more time had been spent on the script, there would have been a reason for paying the big bucks on the acting skills of the cast. As it is, they could have gotten anybody with the ability to shout over the sounds of the rain machine. If you ignore the characters, the acting, the plot, and the dialogue, then this is a fantastic movie and you should not miss seeing it on a big screen. One warning: if you're terribly sensitive to seasickness or motion sickness, do not go. It looks that real. (This would be a fun movie to watch in a full motion theater.) Go to a decent theater. If you arrive 45 minutes late, you'll have only missed some previews.
Our drive-in totals are:
0 Breasts
249 Underpaid special effects people
6 Overpaid actors
15 Unnecessarily paid actors
Hook in the hand
Bite to the leg
Shotgun to the head
Gratuitous Gaffing
Fish Guts
Shark Brains
Magical Blowtorch
Big Freakin' Wave
Big Freakin' Storm
Kung Fu
Gun Fu
Cue Fu
Hook Fu
Anchor Fu
Wind Fu
Wave Fu
I give it a 7 out of 10 on the Good Movie Scale. But only for half of
it. Go see it at a matinee.
It also gets a 3 out of 10 on the Bad Movie Scale because of the dialogue
