feeling listless

Film There is a certain type of film which unlike ‘8 Mile’ isn’t trying to be something it isn’t. It knows at the core it’s a B-movie, an entertainment which people won’t go back to too often but offers thrill whiles it’s on screen. The kind Spielberg used to make before he decided he was a proper film maker (‘Duel’); or Joe Dante. ‘Ghost Ship’ is one of these. Produced by Joel Silver and Robert Zemekis it’s like a big screen episode of a Fifties anthology series, full of mystery, minor terror and mugging.

Initially you do wonder what Gabriel Burne is doing there, and did Julianna Margolies leave ‘e.r.’ for this? It’s distracting. But from initial, very shocking scene it’s very difficult not be looking at the screen. Characterisation is a minimal, and the tension is laid on thickly. You know it’s hackneyed, and that you’ve seen it before (you really have, it’s a remake and the plot of ‘Event Horizon’, but it’s a zippy little thing and for some reason deeply engrossing. And I have to say I didn’t see the twist coming (this from the guy who worked out ‘The Sixth Sense’ from the trailer).