Wynorski! Ice-T! Christian! Phoenician! Matty floats along on a real B-movie pleasure cruise.

The films of Jim Wynorski move. 

By and large, Wynorski’s output is typified by a boisterous, devil-may-care swagger that, at the very least, kills ninety minutes or so. Yet as well made and as energetic as his pictures are, it’s whenever a villain is on screen that Wynorski really kicks it up a gear. 

Jim Wynorski loves — LOVES — a bad guy.

He’s also savvy enough to know that a compelling horror, sci-fi or action programmer generally lives or dies on the strength of its antagonist. Thus, Wynorksi consistently affords his imaginatively rendered rogues a tremendous amount of respect, giving them all the best lines and lensing them with awe and flamboyance. Witness: the Killbots of his signature text, Chopping Mall (1986); the diabolical Mr. Grubeck in 976-EVIL II (1991); modern-day gunslinger Rex in Against in the Law (1997); and here, Ice-T and Claudia Christian’s characters in FINAL VOYAGE. Playing a pair of slick, leather-clad criminals who commandeer a cruise ship, the rapper-cum-DTV staple – a favourite of Final Voyage’s production company, Phoenician Entertainment – and the Babylon 5 ultra-babe are a delight to watch. They strut and mug with abandon as Wynorski dances his camera around them. Man-mountain Michael Reilly Burke features as their muscle, and Dylan Walsh is a decent foil as the hero, a celebrity bodyguard, trying to stop them. The future Nip/Tuck star does, however, come across a little bland – but that’s only because Ice-T and Christian’s scene-chewing bad-assery is so potent. 

Ostensibly a low-budget retread of Under Siege (1992) (a comparison furthered by the casting of Erika Eleniak, capping a trifecta of Wynorski flicks following The Pandora Project (1998) and Stealth Fighter (1999)), Final Voyage’s influences appear more old school. Although there’s enough straight-up action to pacify the stauncher members of the bullets and bombs brigade, this diverting, character-focused tale is less ‘Die Hard (1988) on a boat’, more ‘The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) on the high seas’. It’s a tense, cool, and fleetingly funny ‘70s-style heist movie spiked with disaster trappings rather than a brash, ‘80s-esque shoot-‘em-up.

The second Wynorski joint to bear the maestro’s ‘Jay Andrews’ pseudonym (after Stealth Fighter), and the first picture the busy auteur supplied to frequent collaborator Andrew Stevens’ Phoenician, Final Voyage’s sturdy production values are — quelle surprise — bolstered by some nicely utilised stock footage, with Stephen Sommers’ Deep Rising (1998) and Richard Lester’s Juggernaut (1974) impishly raided.

Incidentally, Final Voyage’s executive producer, New City Releasing’s Alan B. Bursteen, also licensed the Unified Film Organization’s Escape Under Pressure (2000), another Under Siege take shot and released at roughly the same time. It even used the same set/location: the RMS Queen Mary, which has been moored in Long Beach since 1967. For those, like me, consumed by such details, Escape Under Pressure premiered on HBO in May 2000 while Final Voyage hit video and DVD (via Artisan) the month after, in June [1].

USA ● 1999 ● Action ● 91mins

Dylan Walsh, Ice-T, Erika Eleniak, Claudia Christian ● Dir. Jim Wynorski (as ‘Jay Andrews’) ● Wri. J. Everett Morley and Jim Wynorski (as ‘Noble Henry’)

[1] Final Voyage’s other executive producers are Doug Beswick, Kevin Kutchaver, and Kevin O’Neill — aka VFX outfit Flat Earth Productions. As it happens, Final Voyage represents one of two Phoenician epics the company provided digital effects for. The other is fellow ship-bound romp Intrepid (2000), which, like Final Voyage, was co-penned by James Morley III. Both assignments were meant to herald Flat Earth’s transition to producing their own movies but the rest of their proposed slate — sci-fi caper ‘Perdition’ (which Chris Walas was attached to direct), virus thriller ‘Neuroceptor’, and sci-fi horror ‘Alien Harvest’ — all failed to launch.