SC: As I exited the movie theater with a friend after seeing The Perfect Storm, both of us were silent for a second, perhaps pondering the lives of the six crew members who died aboard the Andrea Gail. 'I'm really craving sushi,' he said, breaking the silence. 'I gotta stop at Barnes and Nobles afterwards.' 'Oh, can I borrow your cellphone?' etc. etc. Neither of us brought up the movie for the rest of the night. Why would we? The Perfect Storm had absolutely nothing going for it-no character development, no suspense (we all knew the real story), no payoff. It would have played better as an IMAX two-hour CGI wave fest. And just as I tuned out in The Patriot to start asking myself important questions about the film's subject matter, I did the same for The Perfect Storm. Did they slaughter real fish for the packing sequences? Did the PETA get upset - or are fish fair game for slaughter? Can you ever rid yourself of the fish stench if you're a fisherman? Would you get less dates if you can't get rid of the stench? Maybe a really strong cologne could hide it?

WG: Going into The Perfect Storm, and already knowing the fate of the Andrea Gail and her six crew members, I was skeptical that the film could be anything more than an exercise in high-priced special effects. Well, I was certainly wrong and I credit veteran director Wolfgang Peterson for making the movie as good as it is. The selling point may have been the titanic waves, but what makes Perfect Storm work is the opening half hour, in which Peterson not only establishes his characters but, more importantly, establishes the life of the Gloucester fishermen. Their precarious economic existence lends much needed dramatic weight to the visually enthralling storm sequence that occupies the bulk of the movie. Indeed, the posters may have been adorned with the mammoth final wave, but the real 'money shot' is the wall engraved with the names of those who died at sea for their trade. Admittedly the film lapses into sentimentality at the end and Peterson never finds a particularly smooth way to shift between the Andrea Gail and the Coast Guard rescue, but with The Perfect Storm, he delivers a haunting ode to the life of the fisherman rather than just another soulless blockbuster.

The Cell

SC: The trailer for The Cell is beautiful and brilliant'a startlingly perfect mixture of pictures and pitch. But a trailer only runs a couple minutes, and director Tarsem Singh finds he has a lot more to deal with when he has to produce a coherent piece 60 times as long. The problem with The Cell is that it gets so hung up on its little details and visual tricks that it loses sight of the bigger picture - the villain's motivations, the detective's emotions, logic, etc. And sure, we can applaud Singh all we want for his audacity, but what's the point if the movie doesn't have any impact? Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez's squeaky voice is starting to get on my nerves; for a girl who prides herself on sass and ass, she's awfully shrill. But in the end, she's cast as eye candy, not as an actress. And in a movie filled with meaningless visual stunts, she simply dissolves with the rest of them.