|
 o sue me if I think director Steve Beck has a bright
future in the horror genre. (Or at least, the horror genre as it exists today.)
He's already proven to me (if to no one else, natch) with his feature debut
"13 Ghosts"
that his background in visual special effects adds tremendously to his ability
to render an effective ghost. Beck's latest film is "Ghost Ship",
about a haunted cruise liner thought lost 40 years ago, only to resurface
suddenly and without explanation.
Gabriel Byrne ("The
Man in the Iron Mask") leads the charge as Captain Murphy, a former
boozehound forever tempted by the dreaded bottle. Among Murphy's small and
close-knit crew of fortune hunters is Epps (Julianna Margulies), the daughter he
never had, and four other males, including token Hispanic Santos (Alex
Dimitriades) and token Black Greer (Isaiah Washington). Intrigued by a
stranger's proposal, the crew goes in search of a long-missing ship. Suddenly
stumbling upon the vessel, the crew discovers gold bars in the $100s of
millions. And oh yeah, the cruise liner's former occupants are still onboard!
Movies like "Ghost Ship" (despite the title) is
really not as concerned about scaring you as it is about thrilling you.
"Ghost Ship" is really a Last Stand in a Haunted House movie, with
Murphy's crew being trapped inside the derelict cruise liner as it streaks
toward certain death. The supernatural entity that is hunting the crew turns out
to be more than a ghost; worst, it's a ghost with an agenda that sounds awfully
like a -- gasp! -- job! (Yes, that last part really is as silly as it
sounds, I'm afraid.)
Cruising right along to its silly ending (complete with a
laughable twist that reveals the identity of the killer/killers), "Ghost
Ship" still manages to help pass the time with a reasonable amount of shock
scenes and blood and guts. The opening sequence, where the cruise liner's
patrons and crew are sliced in half by a runaway metal rope, is a real crowd
pleaser. But alas, you know you're watching a movie that has no interest in
being innovative when it employs the tried and true gimmick of "now you see
it, now you don't", where a character spots a ghost, is distracted and
looks off screen, only to look back and the ghost is gone! Oh dear, how…old.
I'm really not sure why ex-"ER" star Julianna
Margulies chose "Ghost Ship" as one of her first post-"ER"
roles. She's the Ellen Ripley type here, and just like Ripley, everyone refers
to Margulies as "Epps" instead of her first name, "Maureen."
You see, by calling her by her last name the movie has effectively removed her
feminism, thus making her as tough as the guys, so we can root for her. Or some
such nonsense.
Joining Margulies in this exercise in instant shock
gratification is her former "ER" co-star Ron Eldard, who plays Dodge,
one of the "other guys" in Murphy's crew. Try as they might, all four
are really interchangeable. Santos is an engineer who talks to a photo of his
dream car and Greer is -- well, I don't really know what Greer does, besides
pine for his fiancée. I do know that Munder (Karl Urban) and Dodge spend an
awful lot of time together playing paper, rock, and scissors. Actually, besides
watching Gabriel Byrne sleepwalk from scene to scene trying to avoid the bottle,
the screenwriters never bothered with a background for any of the characters,
including Margulies' Epps. Not that it would have mattered, mind you.
Despite all of its many faults, and its strangely blasé
ending, "Ghost Ship" did manage to entertain me, mostly due to
director Steve Beck's flair for the visuals. "Ghost Ship" also has a
nice pace, and at just under 90 minutes, the movie is over before you know it.
The First Act is all about establishing Murphy's crew as they locate the ship
and discover its content; the Second Act concerns the "master ghost"
as it separates the crew and dispatch them one by one; and the Third Act
involves -- well, the less said about the lazy Third Act the better.
"Ghost Ship", like Beck's last movie, is no
horror masterpiece. It's a guilty pleasure, but it is a pleasure to watch -- for
the most part. The setup is fast and there are enough cheap thrills to last 90
minutes worth of celluloid. Margulies makes a fair heroine and Emily Browning,
as the ghost girl in all of the trailers, is appropriately spooky. Maybe it's
her awfully pale face, or that weird British accent of hers, but her character
really works.
|
