|
I'm going to get straight to the point at the beginning of this review, " The Perfect Storm " is a disappointment. There are some thrilling moments and one or two nice touches, but overall this is an effects driven, badly scripted mess.
Things start off well when we are introduced to all the major characters. Captain Billy Tyne, a gruff sea-man who hasn't landed a major haul in quite some time. Tynes crew members, Bobby Shatford, a young man( Whalberg) who doesn't want to leave his girlfriend to go out on the ocean , but needs the money. Then there is Murph , John C. Reilly's character, who misses his young son, who lives with his ex-wife. For the first forty minutes or so, we get to know the characters, their lives their problems. Although there isn't anything too amazing on display in this opening, it introduces us with the people who are about to be tossed into " the storm of the century ".
When Tyne insists that him and his crew take to the sea's again two days after arriving back, things steadily start to fall apart . First of all, there is the necessary "heartbreaking " scene between Whalberg and his girlfriend , when she begs him not to go , telling him that she "just has this bad feeling." Come on! How cliched can you get? Then Clooney makes a speech to a rival captain about the joy of the ocean , which sounds embarrassingly cheesy.
Once the crew set out on the high sea's, the film loses any character development it once had and turns into a heap of spectacle. Swordfish catches, a shark-attack, underwater rescues are but a few of the things that waste up time before the storm kicks in. These scenes don't achieve anything, they just throw the usual Hollywood heroics at the audience, and expect us to gasp in awe.
When the horrific storm does kick-in, however, the scene is amazing. The special effects are truly magnificent and frighteningly realistic.
The narrative during the storm is expectedley limited, just a lot of shouting from Clooney and Whalberg. Although the effects are terrific to watch, the lack of strong character development means that the audience isn't too bothered whether the Andrea Gail and its crew survives the storm.This is one difference between this movie and " Chicken Run " ( the other movie I saw this weekend). In that movie the characters are the most important element in the movie. When, after the ship is rocked by a huge wave, Clooney shouts " That was 'nuthin " the audience doesn't feeled compelled to whoop with joy because we really don't have much of a clue who this guy is. He mentions his two daughters once or twice , but this just seems like a cheap attempt at a proper insight into his character.
I am now going into some details of the ending, if you don't want to spoil the movie for yourself, then don't read this.
I liked the way in which Wolfgang Petersen dealt with Whalbergs death, floating around hopelessly like a cork amongst the giant waves, with the images fading away. It gave a sense of Whalberg accepting what was going to happen, and did make me feel for him. This was my favourite part of the movie.
The scene in which the air-rescue helicopter was attempting to save the members of a capsized boat was one of the more thrilling scenes, with one of the rescuers plunging into the midst of the monstrous ocean to aid the boaters.
George Clooney gave a reasonably good performance, but his character was so badly written that he didn't have much to work with. Whalberg was in the same situation, good actor : badly scripted character.
The only good aspect of " The Perfect Storm " is the special effects, but as we've seen many times before, good effects don't necessarily make good movies. |
|