Wolfgang Petersen Movies

Set adrift in the vast waters of the North Atlantic for a luxury New Year's Eve party staged in the ship's magnificent ballroom, the massive ocean-liner Poseidon receives an unexpected jolt when a rogue, 100-foot wave rolls it completely upside down, forcing the surviving passengers to fight their way to safety in Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen's waterlogged blockbuster. Trapped beneath the waterline and implored by the captain to remain in place until a rescue team arrives, the panicked survivors struggle to keep their cool as the water begins to rush in, infernos blaze all around, and a loss of electricity plunges the doomed vessel into total darkness. Seasoned gambler Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) isn't willing to wage his life on the prompt arrival of help, though, and as he attempts to navigate the treacherous, inverted maze of death, he is flanked by desperate band of like-minded seafarers including eight-year-old Conor (Jimmy Bennett) and his mother, Maggie (Jacinda Barrett), reticent stowaway Elena (Mía Maestro), suicidal Richard (Richard Dreyfus), and concerned father Robert (Kurt Russell), whose missing daughter may still be somewhere onboard along with her frightened fiancé. With a little luck and a little help from onboard waiter Marco (Freddy Rodriguez), the desperate team may just live to see the morning after. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Homer's sprawling tale of love and war in ancient Greece comes to the screen in all its grandeur in this epic-scale adventure. In 1193 B.C., Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom), has fallen in love; however, the beautiful woman who has beguiled him is Helen, Queen of Sparta (Diane Kruger), who is wed to King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). While Helen is hardly immune to Paris' charms, this doesn't blunt Menelaus' fury when Paris steals her away from him. Menelaus' brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox), the power-hungry king of the Mycenaeans, is eager to expand his empire through Troy to the lands of the Aegean Sea, and he uses Paris' romantic slight against Menelaus as an excuse to wage an all-out war against the great walled city. Priam, King of Troy (Peter O'Toole), summons his armies, led by Prince Hector (Eric Bana), to meet the onslaught of Agamemnon's forces, but while the great city has yet to yield in a battle, Agamemnon has a formidable ally -- Achilles (Brad Pitt), a mighty and seemingly unstoppable warrior whose presence could tip the scales in Agamemnon's favor. Sean Bean, Julie Christie, Saffron Burrows, and Rose Byrne highlight the film's supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In October 1991, a dying tropical hurricane from Bermuda collided with a cold front from the Great Lakes, resulting in a "perfect storm" of previously unknown destructive impact that resulted in 100-foot waves; tragically, the crew of a fishing boat was lost in the midst of the fearsome storm. Based on the best-selling book by Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm tells the story of the ship's brave and hard-working crew. Billy Tyne (George Clooney), captain of the Andrea Gail, hasn't had much luck finding catch on his most recent trips to sea, and with money short, he and his crew -- Bob Shatford (Mark Wahlberg), Dale Murphy (John C. Reilly), and David Sullivan (William Fichtner) set out again when they hear that the fish are running. Billy's hunch proves correct, but when the ship's refrigeration system goes haywire, they have to return to shore as quickly as possible before the fish spoil, sending them into the middle of the worst storm in history. The supporting cast includes Mary Elziabeth Mastrantonio, Diane Lane, Bob Gunton, and Karen Allen; Wolfgang Petersen, whose breakthrough film was the aquatic wartime drama Das Boot, directed. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A man who leaves humanity behind to live with animals returns to society under unpleasant circumstances, but with valuable lessons about human and animal relationships. Anthony Hopkins stars as Ethan Powell, a noted anthropologist studying the behavior of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. The longer Powell follows the apes, the more he comes to admire their simple but peaceful society. He begins to spend most of his time with the apes until one day he ventures into the jungle and doesn't return. Powell throws in his lot with the gorillas and lives among them as primitive man once lived in the wild with animals. However, two years later, poachers kill several of the gorillas, and Powell flies into a murderous rage, killing two of the men who attacked his friends. Extradited to the United States, Powell is sent to a grim maximum-security prison in Florida, where he will be held while awaiting trail. A psychological evaluation must be performed on Powell, and the task falls to Theo Caulder (Cuba Gooding Jr.), an ambitious young psychiatrist who sees this as a case with the potential to make him famous. However, since Powell initially won't speak to anyone, getting through to him will be a challenge, and Powell's daughter Lyn (Maura Tierney) has little insight on the father she barely knew. As Caulder slowly builds a rapport with Powell, he comes to realize what Powell has learned from his experience with the gorillas -- and how much Powell can teach him about living with others. Loosely adapted from the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, Instinct also features supporting performances from Donald Sutherland and George Dzundza. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The strong anti-China beliefs of actor and political activist Richard Gere were evident in this Hitchcockian thriller that sought to expose the civil and human rights abuses of that country's legal system. Gere stars as Jack Moore, counsel to a large media conglomerate seeking to open trade relations with China, thereby delivering American television shows by satellite to the largest untapped market in the world. After an evening out at a nightclub and fashion show, Jack goes home with a beautiful model (Jessey Meng), then wakes up the next morning to discover her dead body. To his horror, Jack is accused of murdering the girl, who is revealed to have been the daughter of a high-ranking general. Assigned a court-appointed lawyer, Shen Yuelin (Bai Ling), Jack discovers that the repressive Chinese court system does not grant bail, encourages quick guilty pleas and executions, and looks upon him with disfavor for his Western moral turpitude. Finally persuading Shen that he's innocent, Jack and his lawyer embark on an investigation impeded at every turn by Chinese authorities, eventually uncovering a plot to discredit Jack and his company's entry into China. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Clint Eastwood delivers one of his finest performances, as a secret service agent haunted by his past in Wolfgang Petersen's taut thriller In the Line of Fire. Eastwood plays Frank Horrigan, a secret service agent who keeps thinking back to November 22, 1963, when, as an agent hand-picked by President Kennedy, he became one of the few agents to have lost a president to an assassin. Decades later, psychotic Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) is stalking another president (Jim Curley) running for re-election. He has spent long hours studying the psyche of Frank Horrigan, and he taunts Horrigan (feeling that there is a bond between them), telling him of his plans to kill the president. After his conversation with Leary, Horrigan makes sure he is assigned to presidential protection duty. Horrigan has no intention of failing his president this time around, and he is more than willing to take a bullet. But everything goes Leary's way -- he is smart and cagey and the president's aides refuse to alter the itinerary. As the election draws closer, Horrigan's chances to catch Leary look to be less and less a possibility, and he begins to doubt his own abilities -- both now and in the past, when Kennedy was murdered. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Love means never having to say that you're ugly in the extravagant fantasy film Enemy Mine. Earthling Dennis Quaid is Davidge, one of many space warriors engaged in a bloody extraterrestrial battle against the Draconians. Crash-landing on a faraway planet, Davidge is forced into an "up close and personal" with the Drac (Lou Gossett Jr.), a repellant, reptilian creature. Evidently a bivalve, the Drac gives birth to a baby Drac just before expiring. Now a reluctant foster father, Davidge tries to keep himself and the baby alive while the war continues to rage all around them. The special effects (courtesy Industrial Light and Magic) are serviceable if not brilliant, and the acting is okay so far as it goes. What socks over Enemy Mine is Rolf Zehetbauer's awe-inspiring production design and Chris Walas' superb makeup work. Though a favorite on home video, the film deserves to be seen on a wide theatre screen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Wolfgang Petersen adapted Michael Ende's children's story for this charming fantasy film that spawned several sequels. Bastian (Barret Oliver) is dealing with his mother's recent death. His father (Gerald McRaney) is an imperious sort who continually lambastes Bastian for daydreaming and falling behind in school. On top of his father's badgering, he has to contend with a bunch of school bullies waiting for him in the schoolyard. One day he decides to play hooky and walks into a strange bookstore, where in the attic, he discovers a book called "The Neverending Story". As Bastian reads the book, he's enveloped in the unfolding tale. A sickly child-like empress (Tami Stronach) from a land called Fantasia is concerned about who will take over the land if she dies. She decides it is best for Fantasia if she remains alive, so she dispatches a young warrior named Atreju (Noah Hathaway) to find a cure for the empress's malady. It turns out the land is consumed with a plague called The Nothing, generated by blighted dreams and hopeless fantasies. As Atreju continues onward to search for a cure for The Nothing, he encounters an assortment of strange creatures. Bastian is so consumed with the tale that he finds himself catapulted into the land of Fantasia himself. Atreju realizes that the only way to save the land from its blight is with the help of this strange earth boy, Bastian. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Das Boot is one of the most gripping and authentic war movies ever made. Based on an autobiographical novel by German World War II photographer Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, the film follows the lives of a fearless U-Boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow) and his inexperienced crew as they patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean in search of Allied vessels, taking turns as hunter and prey. There's very little plot, so the movie's power comes from both its riveting, epic battle scenes and its details of the boring hours spent waiting for orders or signs of the enemy. With the exception of one staunch Hitler Youth lieutenant, none of the crew is particularly loyal to the Nazis, and some are openly hostile toward their Fuhrer; this allows viewer sympathy with the men as they perform their laborious, monotonous duties in cramped, filthy quarters, or await death as depth charges explode all around the sub. Prochnow is excellent as the nerves-of-steel commander, and many of the supporting actors -- all German -- are solid as well, although the characterizations border on war movie clichés (the young crewman who has left behind his pregnant girlfriend, the Chief Engineer whose wife is seriously ill). The real star, however, is cinematographer Jost Vacano, who makes the sub's grimy, claustrophobic interior come to vivid life, as his camera follows the crew through hatches, up ladders, into bunks, and under pipes, creating a palpable sense of claustrophobia while injecting it with movement. Originally edited by writer/director Wolfgang Petersen as both a two-and-a-half hour theatrical release and a six-hour German miniseries, Das Boot was re-released in a restored version in 1997 with nearly one hour of added footage which made it even more suspenseful than before. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

Based on a true story, this film tells of an unlikely love affair. While in prison, Martin (Jürgen Prochnow) falls in love with the son of one of his guards. After he leaves prison, he becomes a professional actor. When the young man runs away from home to join him, he is captured and placed in a juvenile correction home. Society's attempts to straighten the boy out nearly kill him and leave unnecessary physical and mental scars which he will bear for life. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi