Yes, you've got a terrific cast here and the potential for a gripping thriller. Unfortunately, in spite of the presence of such legendary stars as Omar Sharif, Anthony Hopkins and Richard Harris, the film is an excruciating bore that seems to focus on explaining as to how this situation is being dealt with as opposed to showing much of the action in making that happen.
A rather creepy voice makes several sinister sounding phone calls threatening a luxury liner with explosion in the middle of an ocean cruise. Sounding sort of like another doomed sea vessel on screen from just a few years ago, this misses characters you really want to see spared, and time with the passengers seems like a script afterthought. Attempts at humor fall flat and the mystery of who is threatening to blow up this ship and why isn't intriguing enough for the audience to care.
There are moments when the film comes to a screeching halt, hitting empty air plot wise with a thud. Realizing an hour in to this lifeless bore that I wanted to see the whole thing speed up, I knew I'd be severely disappointed. There have been disaster films that were so bad that they become funny, but this doesn't even rank as a disastrous bomb. What it does end up being is one that wastes some fine actors pretending to be reciting intelligent dialog and dealing with a complex plot, but all it is turns out to be as exciting as trying to paddle a canoe through quicksand. Nowhere to go but down, and if the boat doesn't sink, you're basically stuck in muck not safe to try and escape from. For an hour and 20 minutes of needless exposition before anything else happens, by the time something does, it's pretty much too little, too late.
A rather creepy voice makes several sinister sounding phone calls threatening a luxury liner with explosion in the middle of an ocean cruise. Sounding sort of like another doomed sea vessel on screen from just a few years ago, this misses characters you really want to see spared, and time with the passengers seems like a script afterthought. Attempts at humor fall flat and the mystery of who is threatening to blow up this ship and why isn't intriguing enough for the audience to care.
There are moments when the film comes to a screeching halt, hitting empty air plot wise with a thud. Realizing an hour in to this lifeless bore that I wanted to see the whole thing speed up, I knew I'd be severely disappointed. There have been disaster films that were so bad that they become funny, but this doesn't even rank as a disastrous bomb. What it does end up being is one that wastes some fine actors pretending to be reciting intelligent dialog and dealing with a complex plot, but all it is turns out to be as exciting as trying to paddle a canoe through quicksand. Nowhere to go but down, and if the boat doesn't sink, you're basically stuck in muck not safe to try and escape from. For an hour and 20 minutes of needless exposition before anything else happens, by the time something does, it's pretty much too little, too late.