The Boat Builder

I watched this movie solely to see another performance by Christopher Lloyd. He is a wonderful, talented actor.

I began watching this movie with the assumption it was going to be a simplistic feel-good movie. Though my expectations were low I was up for something that offered hope and happiness. Little did I know it would be a trial. The only reason I continued to view this movie is because of my admiration for Christopher Lloyd's willingness to provide such a quality performance despite the painfully poor acting around him and weak script.

The story is oft told of the grumpy codger whose rough edge is chiseled away by a child who has social issues of his/her own. So this story is not unique. The script is not only unoriginal, it is forced, awkward, and immature as if it was written by one of my middle school students. The acting (Lloyd being the exception) is unnatural, robotic, and lacks any convincing emotion.

What happened to the end of the movie... it had potential, but it was slow and lacked meat. We only got half of the bones.

The premace to the story was interesting, but it lacked substance, development of the characters and, in a few words, they only presented the cliff notes. The movie left me speechless and the review has to be 600 words, so many more that the dialog in the movie. I usually like Christopher Lloyd and I really liked the young boy. Shame on the daughter for not understanding her father's predicament and the boys uncle was absolutely clueless. The scenery was beautiful and the locale was stunning.

Ok - I'm a person of faith and I tend to like movies with a good moral storyline, BUT I like them to be well written and even plausible. This movie is not - either plausible or well written. In my opinion it's worth 3 stars - and even that is a stretch.

Christopher Lloyd is a delight. The story is predictable but the life of the old man, his work, and his dream resonates.