Grade: B+

Verdict: It'll blow you away.

Details: Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Diane Lane. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Rated PG-13 for profanity and scenes of peril. 2 hours, 15 minutes

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Review: The fishermen of the Andrea Gail take a pounding, and so does the audience in "A Perfect Storm," the latest movie to prove director Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot," "Air Force One") a master of action and ratcheting tension.

Based on Sebastian Junger's best seller, it re-creates the collision of three weather systems in the fall of 1991 - and the battle of men and women at sea, trying to stay alive in the indifferent teeth of nature.

We meet the men of the Andrea Gail as they dock at Gloucester, Mass., after a less than perfect haul of swordfish: Capt. Billy Tyne (George Clooney), Bobby Shatford (Mark Wahlberg), Murph (John C. Reilly) and Alfred Pierre (Allen Payne). When Tyne, to score a bigger paycheck, decides to head back out again, he brings on sixth crewman Sully (William Fichtner) - who starts a grudge match with Murph, raising tension on the boat long before the skies start to boil.

We also meet the folks left landside: Bobby's girlfriend Chris (Diane Lane) and his bar-owner mother; Murph's ex-wife and little boy. There's an emphasis on family bonds. One of the fishermen, ready to give up this dangerous life, promises he's going out "just one more time, I promise." You shouldn't say things like that in a movie.

This isn't slice-of-life Gloucester, but a shortcut, Hollywood gloss on it. The script relies on a fair share of hokiness (the only real drawback to the movie). But it works. We get enough time to care for the principals before the story steers them into wet hell. Enjoy the movie's first half; you won't get much downtime for the last hour. First come spooky omens, then accidents, then lots and lots of water as the waves swell until they look like waltzing skyscrapers.

"Storm" is feasible as a movie only because of the advances in computer animation. Oh, you'll spot bits of obvious fakery during the big storm scenes. But the computer-generated effects are orchestrated with such energy and muscle that you'll feel almost literally swept away. They create the topsy-turvy surrealism of a bad storm, pitching us to the height of a surge, then plunging us into the pit below. You'll walk out of the theater glancing up at the summer thunderheads with a sense of quiet dread.

Like the book, the movie cuts away from the Andrea Gail's battles, making digressions to follow the Coast Guard's attempt to rescue a trio on a pleasure boat, and then members of their own team after they're forced to ditch their helicopter. You can't care as much for these stick figures, but Petersen stages the action with unending thrills.

In a fine and very wet ensemble cast, Clooney wisely never tries to make the captain ingratiating; he's an edgy, tense leader who seems a match for the threats to his boat. Wahlberg and Lane are also good, though Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, as the captain of another ship, is mainly stuck shrieking warnings on her radio.

When so many movies promise a roller-coaster ride, "Storm" is one of the few that delivers more than noise. Though based on fact, some of the events we see are speculative, things that might have occurred. The movie makes them all scarily plausible. It shows us what it might feel like to ride the back of a banshee, praying that its death screams aren't meant for you.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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