Mark Wahlberg as Bobby Shatford

Director Wolfgang Petersen did much better in the early '80s with his classic and claustrophobic World War II U-boat picture Das Boot than he has with Junger's sea saga. Technically, the adaptation is as impressive as it is expensive ($120 million!) but unfortunately The Perfect Storm sinks from the weight of its syrupy sentimentality and spine-snapping special effects.

An unshaven, weathered and somewhat testy George Clooney stars as Billy Tyne, captain of the fishing boat Andrea Gail. Billy's a salty sea dog who's no longer as good at his one trick, finding fish, as he used to be, much to the financial discontent of Tyne's crew, including new kid on the deck, Bobby Shatford (played by "Marky" Mark Wahlberg), a scruffy sea pup with more heart than smarts. The film reunites Clooney and Wahlberg, who worked better together in last year's Gulf War drama Three Kings. Wasn't Clooney in Boogie Nights too? I guess not, but he should have been. Speaking of Boogie Nights (which is a lot more fun than talking about The Perfect Storm), John C. Reilly, who really did act opposite "Dirk" Wahlberg in Paul Thomas Anderson's "piece de porno," puts in another respectable performance as burly Dale Murphy, another career fisherman with barnacles for brains when it comes to risking his life for a cargo of frozen fish.

The always desirable Diane Lane co-stars as Marky's aging but agile girlfriend Christina Cotter. It's the least glamorous role of her Oscar-winning career, but one of her most passionate. Lane's performance is also the only one that musters a decent New England accent – and she looks great leaping into Wahlberg's arms in her cut-off shorts as the movie opens.

Diane Lane as Christina Cotter

Georgey and Marky are charismatic as ever and really seem to know and love what Tyne and Shatford are supposed to be doing on board their boat. But since this is the first disaster movie of the new millennium, it's simply a matter of time before ship hits the fan. True as it is, their peril is still hard to sympathize with and the movie starts to take on water as soon as Tyne and crew agree to set sail for home despite warnings to wait out a hurricane of increasingly unimaginable proportion. Understood, they've got families to feed, bar tabs at the Crow's Nest to maintain, and a market-setting catch of swordfish about to spoil, but don't the little things like watching your kids grow up or seeing Diane Lane again count for anything? Good God man, she's not that wrinkled.

The other star of the Perfect Storm is, of course, the special effects. Extra cookies are due to the techno elves at Industrial Light & Magic who outdid themselves with a tidal wave of visual and audio trickery that'll leave you gasping for air and a rain slicker. Once the storm finally hits and Clooney's dumb-ass dialogue like "I'll find the fish!" and "Lets go fishing!" are stowed away, the Andrea Gail, its attempted rescuers and the audience all get keelhauled with such velocity and frequency that a free packet of sea-sick pills should come with every paid admission.

And when the squall finally passes, all the audience is left with is a "titanic" sense of unnecessary loss. To further the comparisons between The Perfect Storm and that other big-boat picture of a couple years ago, there are too many obvious shots of Whalberg perched Leonardo-like high in the Andrea Gail's masts and even a final backwash of dialogue from a drowning lad to his lass back home about there being "No goodbyes, only love." Well, at least there are no weepy Celine Dion dirges to wade through and it's an hour shorter than that other movie.

So, if you really like fishing, I mean REALLY like fishing, The Perfect Storm might get you hooked. Otherwise, wait until the hurricane of hype blows over and catch it on DVD, if only to blow the dust off the sub-woofer on your home theater.

Finally, for the fishermen and families of those who died aboard the Andrea Gail and their 10,000 brothers under the sea, they deserved better. For theirs is a story that transcends special effects and revolves around a place no computer can reproduce, the human heart.