Ghostboat

David Jason is brilliant. Sadly a good actor cannot salvage an obvious story line (which owes a lot to other works, such as the similarly named Ghostship) which meant it all became a little predictable, and towards the end just plain silly.

Characters behave inconsistently and illogically as the story lurches towards the less than surprising end.

The special effects themselves were also erratic - obviously a lot of money was spent on the set of the sub, but the cgi shots ranged from the okay to dreadful.

Okay if you are bored, but not the great work I was expecting.

David Jason was magnificent in this movie. forget the press comments ( the one I read was written by an egotistical maniac - unfortunately , most critics are of the same mold). This was a very watchable movie , being in two parts , I made a point of watching the second part ( what further proof do you need , none for me - my wife watched all of it as well!) . Well chosen David , for a dramatic role , out of the tried and tested. You convinced me. I didn't want to laugh at any stage ( now that's a challenge). You will have to ditch the cockney accent though . I look forward to your next role - surprise us all , with a complete change of diction! Any way , well done. I love you. Jerome

Quite a lot of CGI in this piece of ITV telly, but not to the extent that it takes away from the acting or the story. In this age where people want more and more 'instant classics', this will probably not impress some people who will see it as a predictable story with an equally predictable ending. I didn't, honestly think it was a bad effort at all. David Jason can easily take-on a role such as this and make is watchable. It lends itself to the subtle chills that the stories of M.R. James deliver, and although it may not be groundbreaking it is certainly a change from the usual stock of 'Drama' that ITV dish up (i.e. detective shows, or pseudo-reality TV.) All-in-all, it was easy viewing and has a satisfying ending. Worth a look.

It's funny how you can romanticise about a film, or piece of TV that you saw years ago, I haven't seen Ghostboat since it was first transmitted. I was all set to give it ten stars, and write a glowing review, but maybe time hasn't been so kind to this show, or maybe I watched with rose tinted spectacles.

I think the early stages of it are fantastic, it's creepy, it's eerie, it's certainly sinister, as it develops from its midpoint to the ending, it totally loses it for me, I don't think I knew what was going on.

Imagine Ghostship meets a A Touch of Frost, it doesn't really know where it sits, is it trying to be a horror, or a psychological drama thriller, it really does fall apart as the mania sets in.

The acting is first rate, David Jason is awesome, as is Ian Pulston Davies. It was great to see Sir David Jason appear in something like this, so well known for OFAH and Frost, I'm not sure he had done anything like this, ITV certainly have him some varied parts.

Great production values, it looks super smart, nice equipment and sets, I thought the scenes of the sub moving through the mines looked amazing.

Worth watching, just expect two hours of surreal goings on.

Watchable if a bit muddled, 6/10.

A derivative but nonetheless intriguing set up; a ship (in this case a submarine) is found many years after it sank, with no sign of the crew, or what happened to them. This has been done many times, it is essentially the story of the Marie Celeste. Despite that the set up hooked me, I love these kind of vaguely supernatural / time travel plot lines, however familiar they are.

To be honest I was disappointed by what was delivered. David Jason is a fine actor but his character in this came over as terse, sullen and not especially interesting. As he is the lead, and therefore your focal point throughout the story, this was a big failing. He just wasn't interesting or unusual enough, you learned almost nothing about his character despite him being on screen for most of the 180 minutes.

The plot itself seemed to peter out rather than deliver a climax, for a thriller (or at least a war time drama) I felt there was too little tension. The actual operation of the submarine and the technical side all felt very authentic but this did not compensate for the lack of plot, or genuinely interesting characters. The officers were all a little stiff, the crew were similarly generic, all of them have been seen many times before.

Towards the end I felt the plot simply ran out of ideas and some of what happened bordered on silly. The story seemed to flirt with the premise it had created, rather than really go into it. I never felt this story got going, I appreciate it was television but there was far too much chatter. It was slow in places where it needed pace, or another twist and this was, for me at least, the other major failing; ultimately the story lacked imagination. What Ghostboat delivered was almost exactly what you expected, no more. There was no moment when I thought 'now that is interesting, I never saw that coming'.

Despite these misgivings I thought it was not bad for a TV two parter. It was ambitious and though it failed to hit the target it was at the very least something different.