GHOST SHIP - 2002
Dark Castle Entertainment / Village Roadshow Productions / Warner Bros.
Rating: Brazil & Netherlands: 16 / Chile, Peru, UK: 18 / Finland:
K-15 / France: -12 / Germany: 16 (CENSORED) / Germany: 18 (uncensored) / Singapore: NC-16 (CENSORED) / Spain: 13 / Sweden: 15 / USA: R |
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In the spirit of full disclosure I should tell you up front that I am madly in love
with Julianna Margulies. I watched E.R. every week, no matter how ridiculously
preachy it got, just to see her. Will this impair my movie judgment? Let's
find out.
GHOST SHIP was directed by Steve Beck (THIR13EN
GHOSTS) and written by Mark Hanlon and John Pogue (THE
SKULLS). The story opens aboard a very upscale cruise ship. We
find out later that the year we are seeing here is 1962. It's a pleasant
evening and the passengers on this Italian liner are enjoying the beautiful
singing voice of Francesca (Francesca Rettondini).
A big dance is being held in the ballroom and a smaller dance is taking
place on deck. It looks like everyone is having a good time.
I HOPE YOU WON'T FEEL IT'S A SPOILER IF I TELL YOU THAT THE TOURISTS ONBOARD
THIS CRUISE SHIP DIDN'T DIE FROM FOOD POISONING! |
Then something so horrible happens that I'm not even going to describe it. I want
you to have the full impact when you see one of the goriest moments I've
experienced in quite a while.
The one person who stands out in this segment is a young girl named Katie (Emily
Browning: DARKNESS FALLS). We'll meet her again later.
Jump to the present day. The crew of the tugboat “Arctic Warrior” is
in trouble. The derelict ship they’re trying to haul back to port
(and collect salvage on) is sinking
and may take them with it. Only quick action by Epps (Julianna
Margulies: OUT FOR JUSTICE), Dodge (Ron Eldard:
THE LAST SUPPER, BLACK HAWK DOWN) and Munder (Karl
Urban: THE LORD OF THE RINGS, DOOM) save the day.* Captain Murphy (Gabriel Byrne: STIGMATA, END OF DAYS),
steersman Greer (Isaiah Washington) and engineer Santos (Alex Dimitriades) guide the ship into an Alaskan port.
The crew is having a few rounds to celebrate a successful venture when they are
approached by a squirrelly little guy named Jack Ferriman (Desmond
Harrington: WRONG TURN). Jack
tells them he flies a plane over the Bering Straight for the weather service.
On one of these flights he spotted a large ship drifting and apparently
abandoned. Jack offers to show them where it is so they can collect the
salvage and he expects a finder's fee. A deal is struck and off they go.
Weirdness begins right away as the ship seems to fade in and out on radar and then
is suddenly right in front of them, looming out of the nighttime Arctic
Ocean. Murphy immediately recognizes the name “Antonina Graza”
as a cruise ship that disappeared forty years ago, but that was off the
coast of Labrador, thousands of miles away in a different ocean. How did
it get here?
I KNOW, I KNOW, NAKED WOMEN GHOSTS ARE A LOT TOUGHER TO KILL (for HetGuys & LezGals, anyway): BUT JUST REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK IN THE SHINING WHEN HE KISSED THE NAKED CHICK? |
They get on board the rusted hulk and go to work. While exploring Epps sees (or
thinks she sees) the same young girl we met at the beginning of
the movie, wearing the same white party dress. She shares this sighting
with Jack, who is doing his best to fit in with this tightly knit group
of friends.
More clues of things being not quite right show up. Among the debris the crew finds
a digital watch, implying they aren't the first visitors the ship has had in the last 40 years.
And in the empty swimming pool below decks Epps finds lines of bullet holes, as though
automatic fire stitched the walls. What the hell happened here?
We do find out, eventually, and when we do it's shown in a very cool way. The
horrible event we saw take place on the ship at the beginning of the movie
turned out to be just one of many things that happened that night. And
that are happening again.
Of course, this movies earns an
!!!UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT!!!:
Write it anyway you want, direct it any way you like, but if the film
is written so that the white folk, and ONLY the white folk survive,
then your film gets the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. To be
fair, this is the first film from Dark Castle Entertainment to get one. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and THIR13EN GHOSTS
did not.
For more information,
check out the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT page.
Ghosts are fantasy so I'll skip the SCIENCE MOMENT.
But I will point out that all this is supposed to be taking place in the
Bering Straight, just a loud shout away from the North Pole, and yet it's
not even cold enough to see your breath. Global warming hasn't had anywhere
near that kind of effect. Falling in the water here should be bone chilling
and quickly fatal, yet several characters who spend time in the water
show no ill effects.
But that's my only quibble. This is a straightforward horror story, with ghosts and
something worse. It's internally consistent and keeps moving. And Ms.
Margulies achieved enough suspension of disbelief that I wasn’t distracted
by my feelings for her. I give it three shriek girls.
This review
copyright 2003 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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