The Perfect Storm [Blu-Ray]

It's kind of weird that Wolfgang Petersen, the man that brought us The Neverending Story and Das Boot back in the '80s, has become synonymous with highfalutin cheez whiz like The Perfect Storm. Honestly, not a single moment goes by without James Horner's ham-fisted, overly saccharine score pleading for the legitimization of broad caricatures that are experiencing love for the first time, missing their kids or fighting with a long-time pal, unable to articulate anything beyond their singular defining plight. But they do talk about fishing as if it were the warm apple pie Jason Biggs mounted in dialogue that sounds like something Tennessee Williams would write while drunk and being ironic. It's a shame, as this is based on the true story of a group of fishermen that perished in a series of converging storms in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The "HBO First Look" supplement included with the Blu-Ray details the tribute and dignity that cast and crew attempted to pay to these men through filming in the hometown and using many of the locals as extras, which is nice to see and partially makes up for the fact that the movie inadvertently patronizes them. When this film came out, much ballyhoo was made over the special effects, which, for the time, were decent, despite the on-ship action looking a little too Dogville for good measure. Ten years later, the CGI looks cartoonish, something exacerbated by some of the ridiculous action that takes place, such as George Clooney slamming around on a ship extension with a blowtorch. It would be funny except for the fact that we know that people actually died, which limits the pleasure we can take from drinking game mockery. Also included with the Blu-Ray are interviews with townsfolk and a brief chat with a particularly swishy James Horner. There are also multiple commentary tracks with visual effects folks, the writer and director Wolfgang Petersen, the latter of which is the most entertaining, mainly because he has a German accent.