Boat Trip * (2002, Cuba Gooding Jr, Horatio Sanz, Roselyn Sanchez, Vivica A Fox, Roger Moore, Lin Shaye) – So Bad It’s Good Movie Review 8

Cuba Gooding Jr and Horatio Sanz star in the 2002 comedy film Boat Trip as Jerry and Nick, two best buddies who go on a cruise to boost their love lives. But they have been tricked by the travel agent into going on a gay, have-it-away vacation. 

Cuba Gooding Jr and Horatio Sanz star in the 2002 comedy film Boat Trip as Jerry and Nick, two best (heterosexual) buddies who decide to go on a cruise to boost their love lives. Little do they realise that they have been tricked by the travel agent into going on a gay, have-it-away vacation.

Jerry has just vomited all over his fiancée Felicia (Vivica A Fox) on a hot air balloon trip immediately before proposing to her. Aboard ship, Jerry meets a beautiful girl called Gabriella (Roselyn Sanchez), who is the dance teacher of the cruise and of course thinks Jerry is gay and Nick is his lover.

Co-writer/director Mort Nathan’s 2002 ‘comedy’ wants to be Some Like It Hot, but it hasn’t the wit, taste or finesse. Yet the always amiable Cuba Gooding Jr does his best with this creaky, leaky, waterlogged comedy, with affable, game-for-anything performances balancing a leering, sexist script.

Cuba’s dance number, bravely wearing only a spangled jock strap, is the camp highlight, and the Swedish Suntanning Team lights things up a bit, too.

But poor old Roger Moore, as Lloyd Faversham, should have been discouraged from playing the ghastly stereotype of a mincing old queen: it’s rancid.

But, generally, the movie is just too dumb, old-fashioned and blowsy to arouse too much offence. Talk about unsophisticated, though: Oscar-winner Cuba deserves classier material, so does old Rog. What the hell Cuba has done to fall this far is anyone’s guess, but he is game for a laugh, and so is the movie, if you are.

The running time is 94 minutes, with an unrated version at 97 minutes.

It was filmed on a sound stage in Cologne, where production designer Charles William Breen built the staterooms, hallways and bridge for the cruise ship, and on a ship out of Athens which cruised the Mediterranean for ten days and stopped at Alexandria, Istanbul and Rhodes. The island scenes were shot on Hydra in Greece.

Will Ferrell turns up uncredited as Michael, the boyfriend of Brian (Artie Lange).

© Derek Winnert 2013 So Bad It’s Good Movie Review 8 derekwinnert.com