Croisière à haut risque

The movie is weak and contrived but this lady shines! Not only is Rachel Blakely gorgeous to look at as Brittany Cooper but she's quite a wonderful actress and sometimes, this critic feels, overlooked. Hope to see her again in better material and, hopefully, with someone like Will Snow, her co-star in THE LOST WORLD television show.

It's also interesting to see a great many unknown and known Australian actors in the cast which may be familiar if you ever watched HERCULES, XENA. BEASTMASTER or even THE LOST WORLD and TALES OF THE SOUTH SEAS. I think spotting the talent in COUNTERSTRIKE was even more fun than the actual movie!

High production values and a decent soundtrack doesn't redeem the hammy overacting and cheesy plot. Chinese nuclear threat meets Steven Seagal's aromatherapist/dietitian/cameraman. The QE2 is a marvelous ship, was a totally enjoyable record (Mike Oldfield), and shall ever be embarrassed to be featured in this film. And, for a Taiwanese national raised in Hong Kong, the vixen speaks remarkably good English - no accent at all.

Worst line: (during dinner, before the sh*t hits the fan) "...then I said, 'After you, Miss Streep.'"

I'm supposed to write ten lines, but I'm afraid this film doesn't merit that much attention (contradicted by the fact that I bothered to comment on it at all.) But, then again, I liked 'Xanadu'. Go figure. At least this one had commercials.

The main reason I finally watched this movie is because of the actress who played Brittany, the ship's security chief...Rachel Blakely. She frellin' ROCKS! Of course...watching Joe Lando was a bonus, hubba hubba. But the story and script were a bit too cheesy for my tastes and I like cheesy! LOL It was a nice cheesy diversion for a couple of hours...but it could have been so much better. As for the little know actors factor...I've seen a few shows from Australia so a lot of the actors in this flick were familiar to me. Most of them have done guest spots on "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" and on "FarScape". So it was fun playing "spot the TLW/FS guestie" while watching this flick. I give it a 5. Wasn't terrible, but wasn't a blow me away kind of action flick. I have a feeling that several of the cast were thinking "rent check" while making this flick. LOL

Well, it's not the deepest or most thought-provoking movie ever made, but one very big reason to see it, is to watch Rachel Blakely (Australian actress probably best known to U.S. fans, for her, in my opinion, terrific portrayal of adventuress Marguerite Krux, in "The Lost World") totally rock, in her role! She has got the action-heroine part down cold, and she even looks fabulous while she's kicking the bad guys' butts, in an evening dress and heels!! I hope this role gives her a higher profile, and more visibility... and will lead to further roles in movies and TV, that will be seen more widely in the U.S. She deserves it!! This actress made "Counterstrike" worth viewing, for me.

okay... aside from the movie's actual acting and filming, I've got problem with its story. I am sure the writers are aware of the issue of Taiwan gaining its independence. However this is the first time I have seen Taiwanese pro-independence advocates portrayed as *terrorists*. For decades Taiwan has been peacefully trying to gain international recognition, by applying for United Nation membership, or even World Health Organization observer status. The last thing I would expect to hear from Taiwan was a story like this. Hrmm... did the story writer also hinted that United States was founded by terrorists? Let's just call them *revolutionists*.