Ghost Ship (1.5 Money Trains)

Alex Dimitriadis can act. From his early days in Heartbreak High, to that cop show set in Sydney. His is a laidback style and, I think, very believable.

So that definitely rules out "acting" as what Mr Dimitriadis was doing in the 2002 "suspense" Ghost Ship. He wasn't the only one doing anything but acting, however, and the only suspense I felt was in wondering whether the Token Black Guy or the Aussie would be the first of the heroes to be killed. (Not that he sounded Australian. Why can't Aussies keep their accents the way Poms do in films?) Now, this film is proudly touted as being from the same producers as "The Matrix Trilogy" (ie, good start, followed by rapid slide into pretentiousness), "Swordfish" (I think that had John Travolta, and can anyone name a good film he's been in since Pulp Fiction?), "Thir13en Ghosts" (is it me, or is that just not a wo78rd?) and "The House On Haunted Hill" (never saw it, but with a title like that…). So this should give you an idea already.

Basically, it's about a crew of gung-ho maritime salvage experts (is there any other sort?) who agree to salvage a ship which mysteriously vanished after everyone on board was massacred (including a great cheese-wire trick at the start) back in 1962. Naturally, it turns out evil was afoot and still lurking, this time in the guise of the bloke who commissioned the crew in the first place. (This is meant to be the big surprise in the film, but I'm hardly recommending you see this execrable piece of cinema.) To cut a long story short, they get trapped on the ship in the Bering Sea, some ghosts try to help them escape the baddie, everyone dies except the girl, who miraculously survives exposure after floating in the water for more than three minutes.

And do you want to know the dumb thing? It turns out the baddie is a "collector of souls" who kills people on ships, lures more to save them, repeats. And if he fails to make his quota, if the ship sinks, then these souls (all sinners) somehow escape and he has to start over and "management" isn't happy. Confused? Geez, if you're going to bring quasi-spiritual mumbo-jumbo into a film, at least give a bit of background. Is he working for the devil, or the Man upstairs? Is he like Matt Damon's character in Dogma? I'd say I want answers, but I just don't care enough, and neither will you.

Score: 1.5 Money Trains