Boat Trip
 

To put it simply, Boat Trip is an awful movie. It either takes skill to make something this bad, or a genuine lack of brain cells. Here's thinking it was the latter. The blame goes squarely on Mort Nathan, who wrote and directed, and co-writer William Bigelow (Frozen with Fear). They both have a lot of experience in some pretty atrocious sitcoms, which actually explains some of the comedy here. It's of the bad television type comedy, stretched out to an unbearable length. And what the heck is wrong with Cuba Gooding, Jr.? Didn't this guy win an Oscar? His last two movies were Snow Dogs and Rat Race, and he seems to be getting progressively worse.

Boat Trip is one big slap in the face to gay stereotypes. Every single one imaginable shows up at one point or another in this movie. And Nathan then makes the incredulous claim (through one of his characters) that homosexuality is okay. Sorry, it doesn't go both ways. It's one thing to say that being gay is perfectly fine, and another to say it while mocking gays for ninety minutes. The same issue arose in Shallow Hal, except that time it was with obese people. So the audience listens to joke after joke at the expense of gays while Nathan says that there is nothing wrong with being gay. The worst travesty of Boat Trip is that it is not funny.

It tries to be. The only people who would probably find humor here are the only people who cannot see it unless somebody lets them in or they sneak in; adolescent boys. The story needs to come up with a gimmick to get two straight men onto a gay cruise, and the script does it by having Nick (Horatio Sanz, The New Guy, Tomcats) piss off a travel agent. In revenge, the agent books him on the wrong cruise. Nick is trying to cheer up his best friend Jerry (Gooding), whose longtime girlfriend Felicia (Vivica A. Fox, Juwanna Mann, Little Secrets) dumped him. Both are horrified to learn they are on this cruise, until Jerry meets Gabriela (Roselyn Sanchez, Rush Hour 2, Held Up) and the cruise picks up the stranded Swedish Sun Tanning team.

Now, Jerry and Nick have their reasons for staying on the ship. Nick lusts after team captain Inga (Victoria Silvstedt, Out Cold, Ivansxtc), and Jerry is lusting after Gabriela. However, Gabriela thinks Jerry is gay, so he has to play the part. At the same time, Lloyd (Roger Moore, The Enemy, Spice World), a lecherous older man, is trying to prey on Nick. At the beginning of the film, Jerry is the more normal of the two, while Nick is more of the boor. As Boat Trip progresses, Jerry acts extremely outlandish (and Gooding just sinks further) in his attempts to be 'friends' with Gabriela, and Nick begins to figure out that hey, gay men aren't all that bad. Well, that is certainly is true, but the same cannot be said about this piece of junk.

Haro Rates It: Really Bad.
1 hour, 33 minutes, Rated R for strong sexual content, language, and some drug material.

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