tek's rating:

Cabin Boy (PG-13)
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Caution: spoilers.

Well, the movie is fairly lame, actually, but I still kinda like it. Um... I watched it once, years ago, I'm not sure if it was on VHS or on TV, but anyway, years later, I watched it on DVD. And there was this line I thought I remembered from it, which I wanted to hear again, to get the exact wording... but it wasn't in the movie when I watched the DVD, and now I'm not sure if they removed it, or if I'm thinking of some other, similar, movie. If the latter, I have no idea what it could possibly be that I'm thinking of, and it's really annoying. The line was something along the lines of "a mismatched family what destiny has thrown together." Let me know if you have any idea what movie I might be thinking of, please??? (I suppose it could also be from a TV show.)

Anyway. Cabin Boy stars Chris Elliott as this rich "fancy lad" named Nathaniel Mayweather, who's just graduated finishing school. He's a totally conceited jerk who insults everyone around him, and of course everyone hates him. But he's looking forward to an easy life, running his father's chain of hotels. However, his limo driver drops him in the middle of the road when he insults the guy, so Nate has to try to find his way to the ship that's supposed to take him to Hawaii. He ends up going to the wrong port, and getting on a scuzzy little fishing boat called the Filthy Whore, thinking it's a "theme ship."

Later on, the crew is surprised and upset to find him there, and he is upset to learn he's on the wrong ship. He wants them to take him to Hawaii, but of course they refuse. So he tricks a dimwitted crewman named Kenny (played by Andy Richter) into changing course while the others are asleep, but of course Kenny has no clue what he's doing. The boat winds up in a storm, and Kenny falls overboard to his death. After the storm, the crew finds that they're in an area called "Hell's Bucket," where all sorts of strange things happen. As punishment, the crew forces Nathaniel to become a cabin boy. At one point, Nathaniel's life is saved by a half man, half shark named Chocki (who doesn't speak). He'll pop up a few times in the movie, to help Nathaniel.

At another point, Nathaniel fishes a swimmer named Trina out of the water. She is mad at him for ruining her attempt to swim around the world, and soon comes to see him as an imbecile. But he falls instantly in love with her, basically just because she's beautiful. Eventually, the ship reaches an island where they stop briefly to make repairs to the Filthy Whore, and try to leave Nathaniel and Trina behind. But first, they tell Nathaniel about a woman named Calli, who lives in a cave on a cliff, and supposedly has ushered many young sailors into manhood, so to speak. Nathaniel doesn't really understand what that means, but he goes to find her, in the hopes of making himself someone Trina could love.

Well, he finds her, and she's blue and has six arms. And she takes his virginity, after which he does become sort of more confident or whatever. I dunno, he seemed mostly the same to me, but somehow he seemed different to Trina (who didn't know about Calli), and she immediately fell for him. Then Calli's husband, a giant named Mulligan, tries to kill everyone on the Filthy Whore, after he finds that his wife has once again cheated on him with a sailor. But Nathaniel, with a little help from Chocki, manages to defeat Mulligan. After that, the crew comes to like Nathaniel.

Finally, they get to Hawaii, but rather than go on to a posh life working for his father, Nathaniel decides he wants to be with Trina and become a fisherman on the Filthy Whore. So that's it. I've pretty much spoiled the whole movie, but it was fairly predictable. Though I've left out some of the weird stuff that happened. Yes, definitely a weird movie, and only mildly amusing. Mostly it was pretty dumb, but it was a sort of fun kind of dumb, I guess. And it was filled with actors I vaguely know from other stuff. There was an amusing cameo by David Letterman before Nathaniel got on the boat. The crew included Ritch Brinkley as Cappy, James Gammon as Paps, Brian Doyle-Murray as Skunk (he's the one I thought I remembered saying that line I mentioned earlier), and Brion James as Big Teddy. And um, I don't really know what else to say.


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