Lost Voyage (2000 TV Movie) 4 out of 10 stars ⭐ Is this a joke?

 Is this a joke?

LOST VOYAGE (TV Movie 2001) 4 out of 10 stars ⭐

BASIC PLOT: 

Dana Elway (Janet Gunn) is the host of a paranormal TV show. She's been fighting low ratings for awhile, and has one last chance to save her job. A ghost ship, the SS Corona Queen, has just reappeared after a 25 year absence. Dana contacts Aaron Roberts (Judd Nelson), a fellow paranormal investigator, whose parents were on board, and disappeared along with the ship. He agrees to go out to the SS Corona Queen, with the TV crew, and a salvage team. They can help get the old heap running, and make a profit in the process. There's just one problem, the old heap looks just like the day she sailed, and something is still on board...something not friendly.

WHAT WORKS: 

*ANCILLARY CHARACTERS ARE THE BEST, AND LEAVE TOO SOON Fields (Mark Sheppard) and Dazinger (Jeff Kober) are the best characters in the movie, reminiscent of Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) in the movie Alien (1979). It's too bad Fields is killed off so quickly (at the 52min mark), their characters made the movie fun to watch.

*SCRIPT LETS DOWN FINE ACTORS Mark Sheppard, Jeff Kober, Robert Pine, Judd Nelson, and Lance Henriksen are all top shelf actors. This should have been a much better movies with all that talent.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: 

* THE SCRIPT IS ABHORRENTLY BAD. There's nothing the fine actors within it could do to save it. There are several things that should have been cut - the ghost child, the monologue given by Janet Gunn at the 54min mark, the flashback scenes, Dana falling through the floor for no reason, and of course, the flying critters at the end. This script needed a serious rewrite! How this ever got made is a mystery to me.

*DON'T NEED ADDED DRAMA Attention Writers: Christian McIntire and Patrick Phillips! If you have a high octane movie, you don't need the secondary trigger. The lesser plot point, involving Dana Elway (Janet Gunn) being replaced because she's too old, is NOT NEEDED! These types of secondary triggers, only stress the audience. They don't give the character a needed kick in the pants to do a great job, it's just dreck! And, I know this came out in 2001, but by that time, there had been many lawsuits involving female news anchors suing stations for exactly this reason. If her superiors thought this, they wouldn't tell her, for fear of repercussions.

*THE DIRECTOR STIFLES THE ACTORS Why do Judd Nelson and Lance Henriksen deliver their lines like robots for the first half of the movie? No one else does, so why do they? This had to be at the behest of the director, Christian McIntire, who also wrote this monstrosity. What a waste of two fine actors.

*STUPID IMAGERY Why oh why, did they include the ghost child on the bouncy horse? It bolts the movie out of the suspense realm, and into the idiotic realm.

*THE LOSS OF THE WITTY BANTER RUINS WHAT'S LEFT OF THE MOVIE Fields (Mark Sheppard) is killed off too early. The witty banter between Fields and Dazinger (Jeff Kober) is the best part of the movie, killing one of them off ruins the flow, and gives us nothing to watch.

*BAD MONOLOGUE At the 54 min mark, Janet Gunn gives an atrocious monologue about the Coast Guard, and how they aren't supposed to be on the ship. I can't even blame the actress, the dialogue is so bad, no one could have pulled it off.

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: 

*I would definitely not recommend this movie, even to fans of the principal actors. It is a FAIL, and is only entertaining in the comedy realm.

CLOSING NOTES: 

*THIS IS A MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE, please keep that in mind before you watch\rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.

*I HAVE NO CONNECTION TO THE FILM, or production in ANY way. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews. Hope I helped you out.