Boat Trip (2002)

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Cuba Gooding, Jr. continued the careful destruction of his film career in this terribly stupid sex comedy.

Jerry (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) proposes to terrible girlfriend Felicia (Vivica A. Fox), who turns him down because she is seeing someone else- and he barfs on her. Sex crazed best friend Nick (Horatio Sanz) decides the best thing for Jerry is tons of anonymous sex, so the two decide to go on a singles cruise. This is the part of the review where I will use nothing but exclamation points, just like I imagine the pitch session went: Jerry and Nick tick off the travel agent! We could get Will Ferrell to do the cameo over a lunch hour! The two are booked on a GAY cruise, and they are straight! Get it?! Jerry falls in love with hot dance instructor Gabriella (Roselyn Sanchez)! Nick accidentally shoots down a helicopter containing a Swedish tanning team! Nick pretends to be gay to be around the girls, and Jerry pretends to be gay to be around Gabriella! Felicia wants Jerry back! Both dudes learn that homosexuals are people, too! It'll be great!

Forget for a minute, if you can, all the badly done gay stereotypes. Forget a depressing Roger Moore trying to seduce Sanz. Forget Sanchez's see-through blouses, but no full on nude scenes. Forget all of that. My biggest complaint: this film did not make me laugh once. Mort Nathan directed and co-wrote this, and everything is by the numbers. The jokes here are terrible. Nathan's direction is plain, when a movie is desperate enough to play James Brown's "I Feel Good" just twenty seconds into the beginning, you know you are in trouble. Gooding is miscast. He mugs at all the wrong times, and I did not believe for a minute that he and Sanz were lifelong best friends. Sanz simply yells his lines, falling into the same routine Nicolas Cage did in "Trapped in Paradise." The rest of the women are window dressing, except Lin Shaye, who portrays the Swedish team's coach, and just replays all her parts from the Farrelly Brothers' pictures.

"Boat Trip" is one of those films that you watch because it might not be as bad as you have heard- but then the film confirms your darkest fears.

Stats:
(2002) 94 min. (1/2 *) out of five stars
-Directed by Mort Nathan
-Written by Mort Nathan & William Bigelow
-Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Horatio Sanz, Vivica A. Fox, Roselyn Sanchez, Roger Moore, Lin Shaye, Maurice Godin, Will Ferrell, Richard Roundtree, Artie Lange, Thomas Lennon, Victoria Silvstedt, Zen Gesner
(R)