The Perfect Storm is a cliche-fest. Familiar archetype characters speaking ridiculous dialogue of the melodramatic Soap Opera kind brought embarassingly to life through overwrought performances.
There's nothing subtle about THE PERFECT STORM. Characters and their relationships are about as subtle as a brick to the head: The gotta-win ship's captain; his condescending boss; the blue-collar couple struggling to make it (She: "I'm really gonna' give it a go this time!"); the hardy, salty & wise middle-aged female bar-owner [counterpart to TWISTER's old Aunt]; the fat chick familiarly defensive about her weight; the heartwarming sap of the non-custodial parent and his son; there's even a grizzled old fisherman barfly ("I remember when..." ). One wonders if director Wolfgang Peterson's understanding of english is so weak that he needed these characterization and dialogue overstatements to have felt that their message was getting across sufficiently.
Clooney and Wahlberg give decent performances, but only because they don't "try" to act as much as the others. Actually, as the "fat chick" (Irene), Rusty Schwimmer is pretty good even though she's got stupid dialogue to trod through; in the end, she's the only one I cared anything about. But absolutely the WORST performance (and one of the most embarassing I've seen in recent years) is from Diane Lane as Wahlberg's girlfriend. For starters, she can't manage the accent (Wahlberg, from near Boston, gets sort of close but lacks the northern Massachusetts twang). And Lane gives it her "TV-acting" all: yelling her emotions to prove how strongly she feels, TRYING to convey a tough-gal swagger while drinking in the local bar. Embarassing. What's happened to acting in recent years? It seems someone is teaching "actors" (of the TV kind, mostly), to "demonstrate" every emotion and motivation visibly. I can hear the acting coach now: "Exaggerate the mime of your emotion, honey! Don't let anyone doubt what you're feeling. CONVEY!"
This was one of the few movies that while watching it I actually put my hand to my cheek and shook my head in disbelief (at how stupid it all was). And I swear I nearly laughed out loud during the sequence out in the storm when Clooney climbs out onto a boom of his ship to cut loose an anchor that's whipping around on it's chain and breaking things: Clooney clinging desperately to that boom in those churning waves reminded me of that old slapstick visual gag of some guy on the ladder of a firetruck as it races through a city, the swinging-to-and-fro ladder narrowly missing bridges and sides of buildings.
At least the effects looked pretty good, though they did have that "computer" look to them.
There's nothing subtle about THE PERFECT STORM. Characters and their relationships are about as subtle as a brick to the head: The gotta-win ship's captain; his condescending boss; the blue-collar couple struggling to make it (She: "I'm really gonna' give it a go this time!"); the hardy, salty & wise middle-aged female bar-owner [counterpart to TWISTER's old Aunt]; the fat chick familiarly defensive about her weight; the heartwarming sap of the non-custodial parent and his son; there's even a grizzled old fisherman barfly ("I remember when..." ). One wonders if director Wolfgang Peterson's understanding of english is so weak that he needed these characterization and dialogue overstatements to have felt that their message was getting across sufficiently.
Clooney and Wahlberg give decent performances, but only because they don't "try" to act as much as the others. Actually, as the "fat chick" (Irene), Rusty Schwimmer is pretty good even though she's got stupid dialogue to trod through; in the end, she's the only one I cared anything about. But absolutely the WORST performance (and one of the most embarassing I've seen in recent years) is from Diane Lane as Wahlberg's girlfriend. For starters, she can't manage the accent (Wahlberg, from near Boston, gets sort of close but lacks the northern Massachusetts twang). And Lane gives it her "TV-acting" all: yelling her emotions to prove how strongly she feels, TRYING to convey a tough-gal swagger while drinking in the local bar. Embarassing. What's happened to acting in recent years? It seems someone is teaching "actors" (of the TV kind, mostly), to "demonstrate" every emotion and motivation visibly. I can hear the acting coach now: "Exaggerate the mime of your emotion, honey! Don't let anyone doubt what you're feeling. CONVEY!"
This was one of the few movies that while watching it I actually put my hand to my cheek and shook my head in disbelief (at how stupid it all was). And I swear I nearly laughed out loud during the sequence out in the storm when Clooney climbs out onto a boom of his ship to cut loose an anchor that's whipping around on it's chain and breaking things: Clooney clinging desperately to that boom in those churning waves reminded me of that old slapstick visual gag of some guy on the ladder of a firetruck as it races through a city, the swinging-to-and-fro ladder narrowly missing bridges and sides of buildings.
At least the effects looked pretty good, though they did have that "computer" look to them.