Is it sick that after three quarters of this movie, I found myself rooting for the ocean to win? After all, as far as characters, the sea is by far the most interesting aspect of this film. Roiling and pitching itself about unexplainedly (the film never does explain what a rogue wave is, though the terms conjurs up a bunch of foam topped green mountains slugging it out in some aqualine bar), the ocean proves to be the fascinating draw in Perfect Storm.
Pros
* The special effects. Although digital effects are getting more and more sophisticated, there is something still artificial about some of the moments in the movie. Often the effects pass by in the blink of an eye, enough to register something happened, but also enough time to notice that something is fake, kind of like being winked at by someone with colored contact lenses. Still, the final moments of the movie, the one represented in the promotional poster, are among the most awesome images every conjured up. Unless you count every other disaster movie made since the Towering Inferno.
* The supporting characters. You know how in movies that are adapted from books, there appear some incongruity that comes from the screenwriter or editor wanting to include some important nugget, just not enough of it to fully explain to the audience the significance of it? Such it is with the characters of Bugsy and Irene, two interesting characters who I wanted to learn more about and whose performances were pulled off quite nicely.
* The rescue attempt. Director Wolfgang Petersen is good at rescue attempts. He portrayed them to great effect in In the Line of Fire and Air Force One. He does a good job in this movie as well. The action sequences (the really fast ones) are very gripping. Too bad there aren't more of them.
Cons
* The acting. You know a movie is bad when a shark steals a scene and the movie isn't Jaws. At first I was worried that George Clooney developed Bell's Palsey, due the absolute lack of emotion in his face for the first part of the movie. Mark Wahlberg gets lost in every scene he's in. Maybe he's just being generous. Sadly, the best performance was left on shore -- Diane Lane, playing a woman who is waiting for her man to return from the sea so she can get on with her life.
* The directing. I'm not familiar with much of director Petersen's work in Germany, but I'm quite sure he came out of the Bavarian Soap Opera industry. Every emotional moment in the movie was played up with "As the World Turns" intensity. To get a sense of how this would play out in real life, the next time you go out in a paddle boat, put on the 1812 Overture really loud. Kind of overkill, no?
* There's a little side plot which portrays a bunch of morons who, despite plenty of warnings, steer their dinky sailboat right in the middle of a hurricaine. What this added to the overall story, I don't know, other than to answer the question I went into the movie with:
What has Karen Allen done since Animal House and Raiders of the Lost Ark?
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