Super Tanker
Super Tanker
| 29 January 2011 (USA)
Super Tanker Trailers

A meteorite brings a powerful element to the Earth during the Cold War, too powerful to ever be used it's contained until a decision is made to dispose of it in the depths of the ocean. During transit on the worlds largest and most secure Super Tanker a rogue wave damages the ship and releases the element which triggers a chain reaction in the environment and the political arena.

Reviews
HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
ekiker Supertanker has a great tie-in to dark matter arriving on Earth in a meteorite, but no explanation why it lasted on the ground for many years in contact with normal matter rather than exploding. However, it is the only movie I have seen which treats dark matter at all. I would like to see others, especially if they give a better discussion of the properties of dark matter and how dark matter can be handled.On the other hand, there were problems with the technical aspects of film-making. There were some sequences where the film prints people into scenes and loses parts of them.The most striking and egregious mistake I saw was scenes of a Pentagon press conference which showed two U.S. flags behind the presenter. One was right-side up and the other was upside down. How in the world did that EVER get past an editor? Perhaps a joker on the set crew?
Leofwine_draca SUPER TANKER has to be the worst SyFy Channel-funded movie ever. Even the title is boring. This is the pits, worse even than all the dodgy disaster movies they make and the monster flicks combined. The plot involves some nuclear cloud that has the power to form and destroy whatever it comes into contact with, and there's a lot of stuff on ships with various officious types ranting and struggling to prevent a disaster and to cover the whole thing up before anybody finds out.The film's leads are vacuous and wooden and the whole thing is only notable for the familiar actors they've roped into appearing; David Schofield and Ben Cross must have been really hard up to agree to star in this nonsense. The special effects of the cloud are just about adequate but the various CGI ships and helicopters are appalling indeed. I like the way the scriptwriter plays casual racism for laughs, nice touch there bud. Just kidding...SUPER TANKER is a real mess and has no redeeming features whatsoever.
John M Upton Two of my hard earned pounds were parted with on the impulse purchase of the DVD of the film so bad that for the UK straight to video bargain bin market they actually changed the title and I had to submit its new identity to IMDb!! The plot (for want of a better word) revolves around some unstable element extracted from a meteorite that is now causing a few problems (in this instance accidentally wiping a large chunk of Canada off the map following an accident) so rather wisely the authorities decide to discreetly get rid of it before anyone starts asking any awkward questions.So far so good until we are first subjected to this film's extensive CGI effects budget. Literally tens of dollars must have been spent creating a CGI super tanker (which by the way in no way resembles the very nice DVD cover art work) as the aforementioned unstable material is transported away with the intention of sinking it in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.Does everything go to plan? Of course not...So with everything going wrong, daft plot devices - sorry - deadly clouds that destroy everything they come into contact with being released all over the place and general panic amongst the powers that be, it is time to bring in our heroes straight from central casting.The obligatory trio is made up of the usual suspects, cardboard characters that consist of the emotionally damaged hero, his intelligent eye candy sister and superfluous comedy side kick Japanese guy, the history and juxtapositions of which are established in convenient three years earlier style flashback that actually has little whatsoever to do with the 'plot' at all.They immediately clash with the military guy before descending into the bowels of the ship (or a disused warehouse in Bromsgrove which is more what it really looks like) and make a total Horlicks of the whole rescue operation, releasing another comedy cloud that proceeds to use up another ten dollars of the CGI budget as it wipes out Honolulu.What is surprising in the midst of the cheap as chips mess is that there is some decent acting talent here, whilst the three specialists who are flown in to save the day are instantly forgettable, there is the presence of Ben Cross who was Spock's father in the recent Star Trek reboot but quite why he agreed to appear in this tripe is anyone's guess.The Greek captain of the ship is also a decent actor and character who deserved more screen time and a far better script as well. The rest of the characters are so dumb as to be utterly unbelievable, not least whoever is flying the Super Tanker's seemingly endless supply of helicopters around, constantly not learning their lesson and flying into those deadly clouds every time in order to provide a further explosion to wake up the audience who by now have most certainly dozed off if they have not already walked out.So overall it is a mess and yet another example of a poor film that probably started off as a good idea very badly executed having been saddled with a dire script, twenty dollar special effects budget (All right, lets be generous, say thirty five dollars) and then unleashed on the unsuspecting public.Memo to self, stop buying cheap DVD's from bargain bins...
FinerFilmFanatic How you perceive this film depends on what you expect going in. If you're hoping for a high-octane disaster film with great special effects you're going to be sorely disappointed. If, on the other hand, you expect 1) a terrible story 2) special effects that look like they were created in Paint 3) terrible casting 4) terrible acting 5) terrible dialogue 6) every cliché known to man 7) even terrible costumesthen you're really going to enjoy this.The plot, as such, has some ultra-destructive element being taken to the deepest reaches of the ocean to protect the world from Armageddon. It was contained somewhere in Canada, but due to oil drilling in the area it has to be moved. Taking it by plane is hopeless, as the speed at which it travels renders it unstable, so the only solution is to take it via the world's biggest tanker. On the way it comes up against a "rogue" wave that appears out of nowhere, despite all the latest gadgetry on board and the fact that it's constantly being tracked by satellite. Various calamities befall the ship, meaning they have to "vent" the element several times to stop it from combusting. These vents create deadly clouds that destroy anything in its path - including a plane that decides to divert JUST when it's about to go into the cloud, a cruise ship with flabby belly'd "hot" girls sipping cocktails, and Hawaii. Watch in a total absence of awe as these things are destroyed by terrible special effects.As for the special effects, clearly the people responsible have never seen such things as a plane taking off or landing, nor have they ever looked at a cloud. You sit looking at the screen thinking, "How on earth..." Bad doesn't come close, they're hilariously awful. The green screen work is also terrible - faces that seem to melt into the background, for example, or the whole scene in the cemetery.Then there's the casting. The guy who plays the Admiral is wrong on so many levels - completely lacking in authority, a terrible voice, and he's not helped by a uniform that looks like he's pulled it out of the fancy dress box. The female lead is played by "Jon Mack", whose career has included the dizzying heights of "FBI Agent #3". Of course, it doesn't help that the dialogue she's been saddled with is like something written by school children, but she is dire. All other actors are bad, but those two stand out.The dialogue seems to have been cut-and-paste from every other disaster movie ever made, from the angry confrontation scenes between the military top brass, to the final lines spoken in the cemetery. You could watch this with the sound off and still know what they were saying.There are simply too many clichés here to list, but don't be surprised to find the Chinese computer whizz that nobody can understand, the alcoholic brought in to save the day, the military who are stupid and devious, the government official who cares more about saving face than anything, and there's even a child rescuing a dog who is momentarily lost. Yes, they cram everything they can into this film!I've given this 1 star, based on the premise that this was supposed to be a halfway decent film. But really I want to give it 10/10 as I thoroughly enjoyed every excruciating moment. If you're expecting Die Hard on a boat, forget it. If you're willing to turn your brain off for 90 minutes, you might just find you enjoy it.