I may never trust a cruise ship, but I do trust Kristoffer Polaha. I have since Life, Unexpected.
Long live Baz.
As The Hallmark Channel’s Winter Escape comes to an end, we’re brought on a cruise ship. Strangers Kelly and Parker both end up on the same Italian cruise, but after missing the boat during a stop, they’re forced to team up and race across southern Italy to catch up. Emilie Ullerup and Kristoffer Polaha star in this movie that will have you realizing that a donkey and a man who says that they won the best ranch hand or whatever on a Bachelor Party can not be trusted.
Actually, any man who says that they went to a dude ranch for a Bachelor Party can not be trusted. Don’t ask questions – just know that I know what I am talking about here.
Back to our two main characters, who are giving secondary character energy. That pains me so much to say because Kristoffer Polaha is an acting god, and we should be putting nothing but respect on his name.
Forgive me, my back is killing me, and strangely, that fits with this movie.
Parker is an uptight lawyer who is caught up in spreadsheets and avoiding life. Kelly is a secret shopper who is caught up in vacationing for her job and avoiding feelings. The two set out on a cruise around the Mediterranean, where Kelly runs into Parker, who is testing how the lifeboats are attached.
I know, I just said he’s a lawyer. He is – he’s just also terrified of cruising, and apparently, testing it at the beginning works for him. Don’t understand. What is also on the list of things I don’t understand is how he manages to make his uptight nature into a shooting game. He does it in the most Dad joke way possible. Like the man shoots off way too many puns. I was embarrassed for him.
I firmly believe that his missing the boat was karma’s way of paying him back for way too many bad puns and Dad jokes. Honestly, the writers made Parker and Emily act like they were geriatric to a point. I’m no spring chicken, but I will say that I googled ages because I needed to know if I was in the geriatric league.
Apparently, according to Missing the Boat, I am.
There is something about Kelly that makes Parker feel put at ease. The only other person who does that for him is having his sister around, which sounds weird, but family can be calm for some. Couldn’t be me. Parker never disconnects from his laptop, and yet he finds himself doing just that to spend time with Kelly. After being talked into (ok, she just had to ask him, and he was practically throwing himself at it) going on an excursion with her, everything goes wrong. The red flag should have gone up when they were greeted with donkeys that are led by a carrot on a string, yet that didn’t send up red flags.
Instead, these two embrace riding the donkeys and believe that they know where they are going. Maybe things would have gone right, except Parker doesn’t tie the donkeys up correctly, and before they know it, the donkeys are apparently thoroughbreds and have disappeared up the hill. I just wondered if they ate the carrot and what it tasted.
What we deal with next is a bunch if highjinks that lead them to missing the ship in port. It doesn’t matter that Parker works for the cruise line – the rules are the rules. If you aren’t back in time, you will be left behind and need to find your own way to the next port. That sounds easy enough, except it’s Sicily, the ports keep changing, and apparently no one has a flight available.
Kelly stops a train strike (like the boss babe that she is) by admitting that she’s a secret shopper, and Parker tells his boss who she is. His job becomes keeping her off the boat, but he won’t do that. By the time that they are back on the boat, though, and she finds out that is what he was told to do, I questioned if we were going to find out that he was the worst and was actually doing just that.
I was scared I was going to have to add disrespect to the Polaha acting name. Ullerup, though, when her character of Emily finds out what he was asked to do, the consequences of it for her, and then what she decided to do with it – I was wondering if I felt whiplash. So much happened in the span of six minutes. While some good things can happen in a six minute and under span, I was not feeling that here. I just felt confused.
Even more confused when we got to the big sales meeting and the whiplash there.
I know that what they are trying to do in the movie is showcase the time off the boat and how it brought Parker and Emily together. They want us to understand why they changed and what brought them together. However, it’s trying to tie up the last fifteen minutes and all the things that the viewer is expected to believe, nothing that I wanted to see. I made me go from wanting to take a trip to Italy and maybe do a cruise to just going to Little Italy here in New York and staring at the bad paintings on some restaurant walls.
Missing the Boat had a lot of issues, including bad pacing, plot holes, and trying way too hard to tie things up in a bow. This is strange for me to say, though – that doesn’t mean that it was bad.
It just means that it was like a cruise – possibly fun, but somehow manages to be flawed.
