Super Tanker, Anti-Matter, Nukes, and Bigger Boats

One of my favorite actresses is the lead singer from Auradrone, Jon Mack (see picture below).  Whenever she is in a movie, I just have to watch it.  Ms. Mack never mails in a performance or merely recites lines, but delivers her character as very human and caring.  After seeing "Mongolian Death Worm," her performance as an overburdened and under supplied doctor in a field hospital outside Ulan Bator inspired me to write a check to the Doctors' w/o Borders charity.  Watching her as Carla, in "Mandrake," showed what kind of person our organizations need to hire to be successful.  In 2011's "Super Tanker" (a techno-scifi thriller), her character (Morgan) ensures that that this film's plot would not be lost in complicated technology.

The plot: 40 years ago, a meteorite crashed in northern Alaska.  Fortunately, the cold kept the thing dormant, because it was made of ICE-10.  What is ICE-10?  Kinda like anti-matter, if loose in our atmosphere, it would cause a chain reaction that could destroy Earth (please...no snide comments here).  Robert Jordan (Ben Cross, fresh from his role as Sarek in "Star Trek"), the former Director of Science and Technology for the CIA is summoned by the military after a portion of ICE-10 is activated in northern Alberta.  Fearing this thing could keep reacting and cause more hi-jinx, he comes up with a plot to put the stuff on a super big crude carrier, sail it over the Mariana Trench, and sink it...thus neutralizing it.  When the ICE-10 starts reacting aboard this ship, navy ships, helicopters, and, cruise ships are annihilated.  

  Jordan then calls in a team of nuclear experts featuring Adam (Callum Blue), Morgan (Mack) and Jackie (Jacky Woo).  This team met with tragedy in Azerbaijan, as Morgan had to watch her brother die in a nuclear accident.  This horrible experience ended her marriage with Adam, the team leader.  Now it is two years later, and this reassembled team must work together to neutralize the ICE-10 aboard this cavernous ship.  Oh yes....the military is hostile to their presence and the President is eager to cover-up what is really going on.  I gotta say, every time Ms. Mack delivered a line, whether it was "We will have to figure out how to modulate the field through network interface" or "Sometimes not good enough is the best you can do," I was applauding.

Ben Cross delivers a serious performance.  In one scene he delivers a press conference which we'd like to see from our leaders, that has us all cheering.  Knowing that the President will probably "get him" for being honest, Cross' character is motivated by truth.  Callum Blue is terrific as the haunted Adam, and realizes that getting his life back together may also help earn Morgan back.  While it would have been easy for this movie to remain at a very technical level, the performances by Mack, Callum, and Woo ensure to a great extent, this is also a movie about human beings.  Will this trio save the Earth?  Will Ben Cross ever work again after being put on the President's enemies list?  If "The Deadliest Catch" ever becomes monotonous, will they steal some of the plot devices of "Super Tanker"?  See "Super Tanker" and do yourselves a big favor, listen to some "Auradrone" music and find them performing in 2014.