ANNAPOLIS
(Or Anchors a weigh? No way!)
An opportunity to make a movie about one of the most awe inspiring places in the U.S.: SCUTTLED. Instead, what we have here is a less than inspiring recruiting film.
I love Annapolis: I love the campus, I love the history, I love the buildings, I love the museums, I love the location, I love the tradition, but most of all I love the people, the officers, the commanders of the most powerful fearsome Navy in the history of the world.
This movie had the potential to tell a real story of life in the academy – the rigors of getting accepted, the intense physical and mental training that goes on with the plebes and midshipmen, the focus on discipline, tradition, and honor that is instilled in each person from the moment they enter, the intense rivalries with The Point and the Zoomies.
With the right actors and the right script, I could have been shouting, “Hoohah!” at the end. But woe is me. They outright stole plot twists from Top Gun, and whole scenes from An Officer and a Gentleman. Shameful.
The character development is nothing short of shallow and unrealistic – a fat black kid who couldn’t possibly have met the physical fitness standards for entrance, an upperclassman with the boxing skills of Cassius Clay, a girl cadet about the size of a fourteen year old whom we’re expected to believe has the skill to train the lead character for The Brigades – an all school annual boxing competition. Her perky ponytail was three inches longer than ridiculous.
Then there’s the lead character! We are supposed to believe that a shipyard welder who promises his mom before she dies that he’ll go to the Academy, gets an acceptance at the last minute because some other candidate turned his down? I mean, come on. Annapolis gets over twenty thousand applications every year and they accept twelve hundred. Is this a believable plot devi? Ummmm…no.
And his dad, the foreman at the shipyard; guess you wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that their relationship isn’t at all close?
One line made me laugh: The lead wanted a shot in the ring at an upperclassman during training. Seems he resents some of the harsh treatment of himself and his fellow plebes by this guy. So when he asks for a chance, the coach says “You aren’t in his weight class, Huard.” To which Huard replies, “I’ll wear an extra tee-shirt.” That was a good one.
No doubt about it: John Paul Jones turned over in his sarcophagus beneath the Chapel at The Yard. Sorry, Sir.
