Prise d'otages en pleine mer

I saw this on TV the other night… or rather I flicked over to another channel every so often to watch infomercials when I couldn't stand watching it any longer. It was bad. Really, really bad. Not "so bad it's good" just flat out bad. How did it get funded? Who thought this was a good idea? An actor friend of mine auditioned and was told he wasn't good enough to play a bad guy but I think what they meant was "save yourself and runaway from this steaming pile of @#$%." I bet the rest of the cast had been given the option. To be fair the acting was hard to judge because of the appalling fake American ascents. The shooting was dullllllllllll. The action was awkward and stilted. The dialog was inane. By far the saddest thing was ship. In real life the Interislander ferry is a shabby boat and on film it doesn't scrub up well. Instead of trying very unsuccessfully to make it look like a new crews liner with bits of tinsel wrapped around rusting polls, I kid you not, they could have change the script to explain or even celebrate the shabbiness. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. Don't watch this movie, not even as a joke.

Yet another Die Hard straight to video rip off with cardboard villains… How many more of these god awful cheaply (and badly) made rip off of the more popular action movies of the late 1980's and early 1990's are there still lurking out there? For the record (not that you will care really) this one is yet another blatant rip off of a combination of Die Hard, Under Siege and Speed 2 complete with a full complement of clichés and predictability.

The non descript villains are the usual selection of cardboard cut out gun toting thugs who are dispatched by various means as the film progresses, the hero naturally is an ex cop or something that has family and attitude problems and of course he brings along to the party not only the usual emotional baggage but also a matching piece of eye candy and his annoying son.

The supposed luxury cruise liner that is running between Florida and Mexico is carefully described as a cross between a liner and a ferry – this goes someway to explaining how come they appear to be larking around on a rusty cross channel ferry – in New Zealand! The acting is as wooden as the deck, the script woeful, the one liners predictable, the villains utterly inept and the plot has holes in it you could sail a boat through.

There seems to be a never ending tide of this sort of rip off straight to video rubbish polluting the late night slots of television and the DVD bargain bins of supermarkets everywhere (although even this film is so bad it has yet to see a DVD release yet but give it time!) Is there any chance of something at least half decently made, semi believable and most important ORIGINAL?!? No, I thought not…..

What a sad sight these TV stalwarts make, running out the clock on their careers stumbling about a little rusting hulk of a ship - boat might be more appropriate. The whole production feels cheap and shabby, and it's not helped by a "big name" star who is barely capable of spitting out the few lines that he's given in a credible fashion.

At no time do the supporting cast rise above the material; they're clearly watching the clock here. Bang out the scenes, get the pay cheque, go home, and try to forget all about it.

It's not particularly badly scripted or filmed; there are no real clangers, it's just utterly anodyne, and shot in a very limited number of cramped sets with a small cast of extras. The pacing is a little bizarre; an embarrassingly tentative romantic sub-plot is only begun after the main action starts, which makes it feel irrelevant.

Maiden Voyage scores a couple of points for being competently scored, and for being a fun game of "spot the Kiwi bit parters"; most of the cast are graduates of Shortland Street or Xena: Warrior Princess. The saddest thing about this production is that this film probably constitutes their big break.

I caught this film late on a sat night/ Sunday morning with my brother. We had been drinking. This is one of the best films for ripping apart I have ever seen. From the 'luxury' ocean liner actually being a 'roll on, roll off' ferry, complete with cast iron everything to the doors with adhesive stickers saying staff, then seeing the same door being used for something else in another scene - this film rocks!! The continuity is so poor you cant help but notice it, it slaps you in the face with the holes. In the final scene he jumps off a life boat with the ferry in the distance. Cut to his son and new girlfriend (The ships PR director who knows kung-fu and used to be in the police but was dismissed for doing things her way - true)on the ferry going very fast away from the explosion. ......Then the dad is there hugging them. HoW???? Who cares, its magic. There is not one redeeming feature to this film. The casino is the size of a large bedroom with one casino table. when being chased by the villains there is only One place to hide, you've guessed it. Enter the villains who, instead of checking under the One table, proceed to shoot up four fruit machines and a little corner bar (a corner bar in the casino - fantastic). They walk straight past the only hiding place thus allowing our Casper to get around them and 'take them out'.

Get some mates over, get a few drinks in, put this film on and howl.

Having the In-Laws over for the weekend? Then this is the film to hasten their departure, failing that it will induce a catatonic state to bring a welcome relief from constant nagging.

The film is supposedly set on board a luxury cruise ship, which is more superannuated car ferry; the plot has more holes than the average colander and a cast dredged from the depths of the celebrity D list. An interesting piece of added amusement is playing "Spot the Villain" as passengers join the ship. You won't be wrong!!!! With a script that sinks faster than a brick, clichéd set pieces and copious amounts of raspberry jam doubling as blood this film attempts to encompass the genres of thriller, action movie and gore-fest and simultaneously fails to fulfil any of them.

A must watch film, if only to laugh at how bad it is.