Lost in the Pacific

Was not expecting an awful lot from 'Lost in the Pacific'. The premise, was willing to overlook its lack of originality, was one that could have been intriguing but seemed like it would be one of those cheaply made, implausible and ridiculous kinds of films. The cover also seemed rather cheap and derivative.

'Lost in the Pacific' turned out to be even worse than my fears and can't agree more with the poor reviews here, have nothing really to add to what has been covered so well already. Just for the record, giving a film the lowest possible rating is reasonably rare for me these days, trying to be a fair reviewer trying to see the good in everything viewed, though admittedly have become slightly harsher recently. That rating is only reserved for films etc. that look like no effort or heart was put into it and like nobody was trying, a cardinal sin in film but actually not committed all that often. 'Lost in the Pacific' is one such film.

Visually, 'Lost in the Pacific' looks incredibly cheap even for something clearly made on a low budget. It has such a drab look and as an epileptic the constantly over-kinetic camera work and dizzying editing made me feel ill and queasy. Not to mention the continuity errors galore. Even worse are some of the most laughable and pathetic-looking special effects to be seen on celluloid, actually looking they were done as an afterthought and on the small remainder of the money they had left.

Can remember little about the music, which tended to be intrusive, annoying and out of place. The script is so awkward, cheesy and improvisatory-sounding that it is enough to make the toes curl in how awful it is.

There is absolutely nothing thrilling, tense, suspenseful, emotionally investable or fun about the story. The predictability may have been forgivable if the film was actually engaging let alone exciting but it fails to be either throughout, and even coherence is not always a strong suit and that's putting it lightly. 'Lost in the Pacific' is basically non-stop dullness and intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, with unintentional humour because of the excessive cheese, incoherent science, gibberish posing as thought-provoking jargon and increasingly irritating and illogical character behaviours that makes one endear to them even less in a film with not one interesting or rootable character.

Amateur dramatics pantomimes and high school productions have better acting than the near-all-round poor standard seen here. The one saving grace is Brandon Routh, who has presence and does try very hard without trying too much.

Summing up, dreadful (a word not used often by me these days). 1/10 Bethany Cox

Well people, another day, another crappy movie hitting our shores. Actually, this was filmed on our shores – Pinewood Iskandar Studios in Johor, to be exact, so I guess that's something. That's about it for the praises.

If writer-director Vincent Zhou intended for this to show the world what Chinese cinema is made of, he has failed. The People's Republic has been kind to cineastes and mainstream movie-goers alike in the past decade, ranging from the beautifully thought-provoking (Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin"), to the big and bombastic (John Woo's mega-blockbuster "Red Cliff"), even veering off into the hysterical (Stephen Chow's recent "The Mermaid"). They do not need to cater to Western audiences at all – rather, it is the Western bigwigs that need to learn how to market these films properly. After all, if Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" can gross over US$100 million in the United States alone, why can't others, right?

Alas, my plea falls on deaf ears, and here we are, relegated to a C- movie starring struggling actors and made by a filmmaker who apparently conceded to the "everyone-watches-only-English-movies" mentality. Imagine a Muppet Babies version of "Snakes on a Plane" and TV's "Lost" meshed together in an unholy mess; sprinkle some stilted English dialogue ("She died so horribLE. .. so tragicALLY") and some truly bad and overdone VFX, the kind that's as half-assed as those in "A Sound of Thunder" if not worse. In this day and age, are mutant cats scary at all, especially if they look like an evil version of Jiji from "Kiki's Delivery Service"?

Hell, the film even goes so far as to hiring attractive Chinese stars like Zhang YuQi to dress up the nonexistent plot (she tries, dammit), but I must confess, dear reader, to feeling a little sad for still-hunky ex-Superman Brandon Routh, who's film career is relegated to thankless roles such as this - a nonsensical riff on Steven Seagal's "Under Siege" character. Was "Superman Returns" really that toxic?

Sci-Fi Channel this ain't.

LOL! is this for real? this was the worst dog poo I've ever seen.

it is worse than the 90s Korean movies i had to watch when i lived there.

if you want some laughs (esp. with respect to cgi): this is the movie for you.

if you want good cgi, good acting, a good script, or anything else that is typical of a movie most people enjoy: this isn't the movie for you.

how on earth this movie has 4/10 is beyond me. not worth the time.

0/10 for everything except being perfect for making fun of china

10/10 for being perfect for making fun of china

PS (no small letters allowed) - IMDb stopped my post because there was no capital on "Korean" (still not letting me put a small "k") but let "china" fly...

This Zhou production is worst. I never ever have experienced something that bad. Let's hope Chinese don't make more of this amateurish movies. Everything in this film is so unbelievable wrong. Story, acting, computer animation are all too stupid for anyone > 5 years old. Therefore I won't spill more words than necessary to warn you all not giving this movie any chance for watching. You most likely will regret watching this, so ignore it and all forthcoming stuff from Zhou, students of any film academy do it so much better. It was like my toes couldn't relax in my socks and stayed frozen until the last minute. I was shocked how bad this movie was and I couldn't believe my own eyes. But I kept watching and I couldn't avoid many laughs... Probably a cartoon version would have been even more fun. And what a waste of money and time. Maybe re-education of all Chinese masters involved in this production could be a solution? And ignore all positive reviews here, as they are the proof of a bad taste.

Well that is an hour or so of my life that I will never get back. The best thing about it is the plane itself.

I don't think I have ever seen such a trashy film. Average CGI effects when you consider how the quality in other films these days, this just looks as if it was 1980 standards. Appalling acting by virtually all the cast and a dreadful script.

At some points when they are "interacting" with each other it is almost as if they are not side by side because there is just no chemistry between any of them.

I find it hard to believe that when people are offered a role in a film that they would have considered saying yes to this one.