Lost in the Pacific

Was not expecting an awful lot from 'Lost in the Pacific'. The premise, was willing to overlook its lack of originality, was one that could have been intriguing but seemed like it would be one of those cheaply made, implausible and ridiculous kinds of films. The cover also seemed rather cheap and derivative.

'Lost in the Pacific' turned out to be even worse than my fears and can't agree more with the poor reviews here, have nothing really to add to what has been covered so well already. Just for the record, giving a film the lowest possible rating is reasonably rare for me these days, trying to be a fair reviewer trying to see the good in everything viewed, though admittedly have become slightly harsher recently. That rating is only reserved for films etc. that look like no effort or heart was put into it and like nobody was trying, a cardinal sin in film but actually not committed all that often. 'Lost in the Pacific' is one such film.

Visually, 'Lost in the Pacific' looks incredibly cheap even for something clearly made on a low budget. It has such a drab look and as an epileptic the constantly over-kinetic camera work and dizzying editing made me feel ill and queasy. Not to mention the continuity errors galore. Even worse are some of the most laughable and pathetic-looking special effects to be seen on celluloid, actually looking they were done as an afterthought and on the small remainder of the money they had left.

Can remember little about the music, which tended to be intrusive, annoying and out of place. The script is so awkward, cheesy and improvisatory-sounding that it is enough to make the toes curl in how awful it is.

There is absolutely nothing thrilling, tense, suspenseful, emotionally investable or fun about the story. The predictability may have been forgivable if the film was actually engaging let alone exciting but it fails to be either throughout, and even coherence is not always a strong suit and that's putting it lightly. 'Lost in the Pacific' is basically non-stop dullness and intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, with unintentional humour because of the excessive cheese, incoherent science, gibberish posing as thought-provoking jargon and increasingly irritating and illogical character behaviours that makes one endear to them even less in a film with not one interesting or rootable character.

Amateur dramatics pantomimes and high school productions have better acting than the near-all-round poor standard seen here. The one saving grace is Brandon Routh, who has presence and does try very hard without trying too much.

Summing up, dreadful (a word not used often by me these days). 1/10 Bethany Cox

I was indeed lured in by the movie cover, because it does seem somewhat interesting, and having read the synopsis of the movie, I decided to give it a go.

Now, with the movie seen, I wonder how and why Brandon Routh ended up in a movie such as this. Has the well quickly dried out that quickly? The story of the movie is pretty straight forward, although a bit too simplistic and it actually doesn't really offer much to the audience. So you essentially just disconnect your brain and lean back in the chair and go along for the ride here.

"Lost in the Pacific" might actually have accomplished so much more if they had a proper budget for the CGI and special effects. For a movie that is centered on creatures and monsters, then it is essential to have a proper budget to spend on coming up with creatures that look impressive and realistic on the screen. "Lost in the Pacific" didn't have such a budget, and we are instead treated to some hilarious and very, very poorly animated creatures, that end up more as creatures you laugh at than creatures you would fear.

And the special effects, aside from the laughable creatures, was nothing of any noteworthy mention. They tried to put special effects in there, such as the airplane, but failed at turning out a product that would pass as believable and realistic. And that whole lack of proper CGI and special effects just furthered the low budget feel that permeated through the entire movie.

The cast ensemble for the movie was adequate, taking into consideration what kind of movie this was, and it was of course Brandon Routh who was the billed lead here. I wonder why the movie makers opted to go for Yuqi Zhang for this movie and made her speak English. Sure, she is a talented enough actress, but English is not what she masters the most. Yuqi Zhang's English sounds like she is speaking by a voice modulator, it is broken, stumped and halting. And it ends up being a thing of irritation and annoyance, rather than just a part of the movie.

The action in the movie, and bless them for trying, well let's just say it was there. But it was nowhere near anything interesting or worthwhile to mention.

This was by no means an impressive movie in any way, and it is hardly the type of movie that you will watch more than once, if you even get to watch it once. Yeah, it is the type of movie that came and went without even as much as a breeze in its wake. There is some kind of enjoyment to a movie of this type, and that is at the ridiculous special effects and the campy, cheesiness to it all.

This has got to be one of the worst films ever produced. I have never bothered to write a review before but I found this movie so awful I feel compelled to do so. The story is beyond stupid and horrendous,the majority of the acting is amateurish at best other than Brandon Routh and a few other performances (its unbelievable that he would agree to act in this project, and I can't even understand the majority of what Yuqi Zhang says in English which is what the vast majority of her speaking lines are (not sure why they would hire someone to speak English who clearly can't be understood). I am so disappointed in this movie and would recommend no one waste their time watching it.

Well that is an hour or so of my life that I will never get back. The best thing about it is the plane itself.

I don't think I have ever seen such a trashy film. Average CGI effects when you consider how the quality in other films these days, this just looks as if it was 1980 standards. Appalling acting by virtually all the cast and a dreadful script.

At some points when they are "interacting" with each other it is almost as if they are not side by side because there is just no chemistry between any of them.

I find it hard to believe that when people are offered a role in a film that they would have considered saying yes to this one.

Well people, another day, another crappy movie hitting our shores. Actually, this was filmed on our shores – Pinewood Iskandar Studios in Johor, to be exact, so I guess that's something. That's about it for the praises.

If writer-director Vincent Zhou intended for this to show the world what Chinese cinema is made of, he has failed. The People's Republic has been kind to cineastes and mainstream movie-goers alike in the past decade, ranging from the beautifully thought-provoking (Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin"), to the big and bombastic (John Woo's mega-blockbuster "Red Cliff"), even veering off into the hysterical (Stephen Chow's recent "The Mermaid"). They do not need to cater to Western audiences at all – rather, it is the Western bigwigs that need to learn how to market these films properly. After all, if Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" can gross over US$100 million in the United States alone, why can't others, right?

Alas, my plea falls on deaf ears, and here we are, relegated to a C- movie starring struggling actors and made by a filmmaker who apparently conceded to the "everyone-watches-only-English-movies" mentality. Imagine a Muppet Babies version of "Snakes on a Plane" and TV's "Lost" meshed together in an unholy mess; sprinkle some stilted English dialogue ("She died so horribLE. .. so tragicALLY") and some truly bad and overdone VFX, the kind that's as half-assed as those in "A Sound of Thunder" if not worse. In this day and age, are mutant cats scary at all, especially if they look like an evil version of Jiji from "Kiki's Delivery Service"?

Hell, the film even goes so far as to hiring attractive Chinese stars like Zhang YuQi to dress up the nonexistent plot (she tries, dammit), but I must confess, dear reader, to feeling a little sad for still-hunky ex-Superman Brandon Routh, who's film career is relegated to thankless roles such as this - a nonsensical riff on Steven Seagal's "Under Siege" character. Was "Superman Returns" really that toxic?

Sci-Fi Channel this ain't.