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"Cuba Gooding Jr. is interested in getting involved." Has the preceding line ever been uttered in conjunction with your film project? If so, you had best give the script another go-over, as you've obviously missed some element in the storyline that makes the movie spitefully horrible. As evidence, one need look no further than Boat Trip, starring the aforementioned Mr. Gooding Jr., an actor remarkable not only for the fact that he can take a completely irredeemable movie and somehow make it exponentially less watchable, but also for the single-minded sense of purpose with which he continually tries to make the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regret, every day of their lives, their decision to give this man-sized pile of warm ham an Oscar. The trailer for Boat Trip begins with a narrator promising us that "Jerry and Nick were ladies' men…" before going on to completely belie this claim. The trailer flashes to a quick shot of Ladies' Man #1, Jerry (Gooding Jr.) and Ladies' Man #2, Nick (inexplicably, Horatio Sanz). Let's face it, if ever there were a ladies man, it's Horatio Sanz — provided you consider the term "ladies' man" an abbreviation of the statement "ladies everywhere vomit at the sight of this man." We watch as Jerry and Nick get down to the business of acting really stupid. And not endearingly stupid either, as with your Forrest Gumps, your Balki Bartokomouses, your Latka Gravases. Just…stupid. You know, like Angelina-Jolie-on-Letterman stupid. The premise of this one and a half hour film, in its entirety, is this: when a woman rejects Jerry's marriage proposal (on the grounds, we conjecture, that she has discriminating taste and common sense), he and buddy Nick decide to go on a cruise to meet women. Their plans are foiled when they wind up…pay attention now, because here comes the good part…on a GAY cruise ship. Nick points this out using the kind of nuanced subtlety only found in top-tier films starring Horatio Sanz. "It's a gay cruise, Jerry," he points out. "Not a bi- cruise. It's a GAY cruise!" Let's forget for a second the sheer volume of plot contrivances Boat Trip will need to pump out in order to have Jerry and Nick not notice they're on a gay cruise until it's too late to disembark ( I predict a refreshingly intelligence-free mingling of extreme drunkenness, mistaken identity and temporary amnesia). Instead, let's focus on Nick's puzzling conclusion that being on a boat full of men having large amounts of gay sex is somehow worse than being on a boat full of bisexual men and women having medium-sized amounts of gay and heterosexual sex. I say 'puzzling' because Nick never once considers the fact that — male or female, gay, straight or bi — the odds of anyone willing to touch Horatio Sanz's sweaty, repulsive man-mess are slim to none. Unless the cruise ship is heading on a decades-long voyage into the Antarctic, is populated entirely by nymphomaniacs, and his only male competition on the cruise is a fat, brain-damaged date rapist, I see the whole "gay cruise/bi cruise" debate as little more than a matter of semantics. Nick's real issue here, or anywhere where sex is to be had by other human beings, should be "I hope I brought enough magazines." Anyway, back to the trailer. They're on a gay cruise. Cue 75 minutes of lame homophobic gags, the end. Surprise of surprises, though, it's not as simple as all that. Jerry falls for a member of the cruise ship crew (sadly a female one; the alternative strikes me as infinitely more amusing, given the rampant homophobia in the trailer thus far). To win her affection, he, naturally, decides to act gay, dragging the audience kicking and screaming into Three's Company: The Motion Picture territory. His choice of strategy is most definitely an interesting one. On a strictly logical basis, "trying to get a girl to fall in love with you by acting gay" ranks just above "trying to get a girl to fall in love with you by acting dead," "trying to get a girl to fall in love with you by acting like the aforementioned fat, brain-damaged date rapist", and "trying to get a girl to fall in love with you by being, or having the remotest association with, Horatio Sanz."
In spite of its flaws, however, Boat Trip does hold some benefit -- most notably for the U.S. government, given the timeframe of the film's nationwide release. For starters, Boat Trip gives anti-war protesters something to be angry and indignant about apart from George W. Bush's War on Iraq. Most would agree after a cursory glance at the trailer that this affront to intelligence is simply too atrocious to be allowed to continue. Secondly, there is likely to be a noticeable spike in Armed Forces enrollment as educated young American men and women decide it's better to be shot at than risk accidentally being exposed to the banality of Boat Trip, the equivalent of a concussive grenade to the soul. Thirdly, should things stray horribly from the U.S. battle plan in Iraq, Bush can always air the film in Baghdad and wait for the Iraqi soldiers to either surrender or blind themselves en masse. In fact, so long
as that pesky United Nations doesn't ban the use of Cuba Gooding Jr.
movies in times of war on humanitarian grounds, this may well become
the historically proscribed use for Boat Trip. Of course, it's
likely only a matter of time before the UN does place an international
ban on the Gooding, Jr. oeuvre. After all, there's little in the world
less humane than subjecting people to these weapons of mass irritation. RATING:
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A
message to Hollywood producers: when you're convinced you've found a
movie script that transcends all boundaries; that combines depth and
art with mainstream accessibility; that brings culture to the masses;
that is both unique and universal; that will make people smarter and
more caring and the world a more tolerant place — if you're certain
your movie is all of these things, it would be prudent to use the following
statement as a litmus test:
Illogic
aside, the emergence of a love interest brings about the promise of
all sorts of hijinx, all of them either overtly or mostly overtly homophobic,
as Jerry plays on every tired stereotype we might have found shocking
or amusing fifty years ago. To complete his gay act, he regards the
girl with equal parts apathetic disdain and sheer disgust, making sure
it's perfectly clear that under no circumstances would he ever want
to have anything to do with her; since homosexuals, as we all know,
are spiteful, coal-hearted misogynists to a man. Basically, Boat
Trip seems like the kind of movie I might - might - have enjoyed
back in the eighth grade, but only if I had been in Special Ed. 