MovieChat Forums > The Perfect Storm (2000) Discussion > Some really cheesy line deliveries in th...

Some really cheesy line deliveries in this movie

posted a year ago by jasonbayly13181 (177)
2 replies | jump to latest

Rewatching it now on Max for the hell of it and since I hadn't seen it in years. Christopher MacDonald's weatherman character is absolutely cringeworthy in every single line he delivers. Like really bad. REALLY bad. I found myself making the Butthead face listening to his lines. He had to have known his delivery was awful when filming it.

Mary Elizabeth Blah Blah Blah's "you're heading right for the middle of the monster!" was just....woof. Overacted beyond words.

Clooney's obviously well rehearsed speech to Mary Elizabeth Blah Blah Blah's character about how great it is to be a boat captain before they headed out to sea a second time was completely unnatural and overly romanticized.

And Diane Lane is just annoying as all hell in everything she does and says. It's still an entertaining enough movie, but I didn't realize how corny it could be in certain parts until this rewatch.

[–] howgamer (3679) 10 months ago

I just re-watched for the first time in probably 20 years so remembered not too much of the details. Overall, I enjoyed it, much more than I remember. But, Mary Elizabeth's drawn out speech on the radio was such a cringey scene. How many analogies did she need to use to describe the storm? I imagine if Clooney actually could have heard her on the radio monologuing for five minutes he would have shut it off anyway. Easily that scene and the comically bad CGI of the Coastguard cruiser (which wasn't needed) and chopper were the worst bits of the film.

I agree about Diane Lane too. She wasn't great in this, but looked incredible.

[–] Kendricks (2125) 8 months ago

I also just rewatched this and came to the same conclusion.
Diane Lane looked great but boy was she obnoxious, same as Mastrantonio.
Way too dramatic from start to finish, but this was the movie's major flaw in general, in my opinion.
I noticed how they all acted as if the men going to sea (in general, not just back to it after the initial bad haul) would mean good bye for a year or more like in the old whaler times while also being just as dangerous, which of course is nonsense.

While going to sea is still and always will be dangerous, it's silly to act like they go out on some suicide mission just because every decade or so there are some losses.
In fact, the official site of Gloucester has these losses listed online:
https://www.downtosea.com/list2.htm

1978 -

February - The Can Do - entire crew of five men lost
September - The Captain Cosmo - entire crew of six men lost
September - The Alligator - entire crew of three men lost

1982 -

March - one man lost

1991 -

October - The Andrea Gail - entire crew of six men lost

1994 -

September - The Italian Gold - entire crew of four men lost

The corny drama ruined the movie for me.
It had premise and a story worth telling, perhaps (then again all we have seen happening aboard the Gail was complete fiction, for obvious reasons), but sometimes Petersen just couldn't hold back the cheese and then this is the result. Still love the man for Das Boot.

The action was also unnecessarily unrealistic (basically all Coastguard scenes but also the final fight of the Gail with Tyne holding on the the boat despite the massive forces of the storm, lol) and the CGI did not exactly age like fine wine either.

I rated it 5/10, it's okay and potentially interesting, but too flawed in the end.