Maiden Voyage (2004)

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

What a joke. I am watching it on Channel 1 and I think watching paint dry is much more entertaining. What happened to Caspar Van Dien that got him roped into this nightmare. Terrible acting, very boring plot and terrible direction. It so terrible, it's funny. It's suppose to be full of suspense, but it more a comedy. If you want to see terrible acting, ridiculous script writing and sub-par plot, check this movie out. If I was Van Dien, I would not only ask for my 10% from my agent, but fire the bastard in the process. What a turkey. It's not even fit to be on MST 3K!! It would be a good movie to cure you insomnia. I especially love the part where Van Dien is throw overboard and then makes it back in just a few minutes! I can only image that this was written by non-union writers taking advantage of the writer's strike. What a horrible movie!!!

The cast of this film contain some of New Zealander's better actors, many of who I have seen in fabulous roles, this film however fills me with a deep shame just to be from the same country as them. The fake American accents are the first clue that things are about to go spectacularly wrong. As another review rather astutely noted the luxury cruise ship is in fact an old car ferry, decorated with a few of the multi colour flags stolen from a used car lot. Most of the cast appear to be from the (great) long running New Zealand soap Shortland Street. It's as if this movie was dreamt up at a Shortland Street cast Christmas party, the result of too many gins, and possibly a bit of salmonella. Imagine "Under Siege" meets "The Love Boat", staged by your local primary school and directed by an autistic and you get the idea.If you are an actor, I recommend you see this film, as a study on how to destroy your carer.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but some films are good and some films are bad. Of course, there are extremes within those two broad categories. Films such as The Godfather, Saving Private Ryan, and Star Wars slot comfortably into the good category. At the other end of the spectrum there are those films that simply don't deserve to be mentioned by name. Occasionally however, someone produces a truly woeful film. A film that should be singled out as a demonstration of how awful a film can be. A film that is more than bad. Such a film is Maiden Voyage.Briefly, Maiden Voyage is a story about a luxury cruise ship that is hijacked by a gang of evil criminals who demand a ransom from an equally evil, scheming ship's owner. Of course, there is an all American hero on board, complete with chiselled jaw and sculptured chest, who saves the day.This is a production that plumbs new depths. Everything about it is bad. The acting, the direction and the so-called plot are breath-takingly poor. In short, it is an insult to the intelligence of any unfortunate viewer. Even an American viewer would be annoyed by its shortcomings.Yes, it's that bad.I will resist the temptation to compose a list of things that angered me about this film. However, its dumber-than-dumb conclusion should serve as an adequate example of what I mean.Imagine in your mind that you are an evil hijacker and you are stood in an open lifeboat on a calm sea. You are in company with the hero who holds a ticking bomb. Said hero throws the bomb to you and dives overboard. What would you do? I don't know about you, but I would throw the bomb as far as I possibly could into the sea. Not this guy. He watches as our hero swims away and then he tries to disarm the bomb with unfortunate (for him) results. Enough said. Such a demise would merit a mention in the Darwin Awards website and might also be a suitably apt conclusion to the production team's lives.

What a sad sight these TV stalwarts make, running out the clock on their careers stumbling about a little rusting hulk of a ship - boat might be more appropriate. The whole production feels cheap and shabby, and it's not helped by a "big name" star who is barely capable of spitting out the few lines that he's given in a credible fashion.At no time do the supporting cast rise above the material; they're clearly watching the clock here. Bang out the scenes, get the pay cheque, go home, and try to forget all about it.It's not particularly badly scripted or filmed; there are no real clangers, it's just utterly anodyne, and shot in a very limited number of cramped sets with a small cast of extras. The pacing is a little bizarre; an embarrassingly tentative romantic sub-plot is only begun after the main action starts, which makes it feel irrelevant.Maiden Voyage scores a couple of points for being competently scored, and for being a fun game of "spot the Kiwi bit parters"; most of the cast are graduates of Shortland Street or Xena: Warrior Princess. The saddest thing about this production is that this film probably constitutes their big break.