'Ghost Ship' struggles to stay afloat
By Christopher DaCosta
An evocative opening aboard the Antonia Graza in 1962, complete with an obviously lip-synching sultry cabaret singer, feigned glamour and the general premise of "this seems too good to be true," "Ghost Ship" foreshadows the movie's subsequent tragic events in its first five minutes.
In 2002, Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), a mild-mannered pilot, approaches a tough-talking salvage crew alerting them of an enormous unidentified vessel in the middle of the Bering Sea.
Murphy (Gabriel Byrnes) leads Ferriman and the crew to the abandoned liner with the help of co-captain Epps (Julianna Margulies).
The team discovers the mythic Antonia Graza, an Italian cruise liner which disappeared mysteriously 40 years earlier. Driven by greed, the crew ignores every trite horror-movie warning sign and adamantly stakes a claim on the valuable luxury liner, planning to tow the cumbersome vessel while trying to uncover its shroud of mystery.
The shell of its formerly grand self, the Antonia Graza not only teems with rats and decay but also dead bodies of previous fortune-hunters and murderous ghosts which threaten the salvage crew.
Epps befriends a pale young girl wearing a festive dress - a ghost named Katie (Emily Browning). She leads Epps through the ship warning her to leave immediately or face the wrath of her unexplained "master."
Combining a haunted house theme with a maritime motif, it becomes evident that "Ghost Ship" is a ghastly hybrid of "Titanic" and "The Shining" minus the epic proportions and psychological Kubric touch.
The film rivals "Titanic," with many holes and undeveloped plot lines, which make it sink much faster than the famed 1912 White Star liner. For some reason, Harrington touches on a possible romantic relationship between Epps and the aging sea-dog, Murphy. The notion is dismissed and disappears as quickly as it comes up.
The movie also attempts to evoke some sort of fictional nostalgia with the liner being an Italian ship from the '60s, carrying only the "crème de la crème," according to one of the actors. Yet this effort fails only to be overshadowed by the authenticity of Titanic.
Margulies, a respectable actor, is the female hero in this movie. Unfortunately, she chose the wrong script to further her cinematic endeavors. This movie does not stretch her capabilities as an actor. Gabriel Byrnes, the other principle role, is not challenged with much of a range.
Desmond Harrington plays Ferriman well, although some of his serious attempts are laughable. Reminiscent of Edward Norton, Harrington is perhaps the only actor challenged by the script of this movie.
But not even a talented cast could save "Ghost Ship." Steven Beck, director of "13 Ghosts," lends his hand to this piece, showing a lack of directorial expertise. Beck delivers his staple pathetic humor and decent special effects in the gory scenes throughout the movie.
While the story itself is salvageable, it seemed as if the writers, Mark Hanlon and John Pogue, made the plot more intricate than the production crew could handle, resulting in a rushed and patched-up effect lacking substance.
The mélange of horror, adventure, charged emotions and cheap humor reminiscent of a taste-testing "Jackass" episode caused the film to be overridden with every type of hackneyed horror-movie cliché as well as making the production appear to be the work of an amateur. The twists and turns made "Ghost Ship" awkward and clumsy.
However, there is one scene that is not congruent with the rest of the movie; it actually reveals a shred of Beck's talent. Katie uses here ghostly powers to transport Epps to a highly stylized setting synchronized to a soundtrack of heavy metal. The scene, undoubtedly the best in the movie, picks up where the opening prologue left off and Epps becomes a part of the audience, watching the perfectly choreographed events that led up to the eventual demise of the Antonia Graza.
Not only are the events of the movie disastrous, but the opening correctly foreshadows the tragedy that is this movie.