When Lieutenant Rip Crandall is offered his first command he jumps at the chance. However when he arrives at his 'ship' he finds that the Echo is more of a tub than a destroyer being practically a yacht! With an inexperienced or inept crew and a second officer who has barely ever been on water for any length of time, Crandall is ready to drop out until guilt gets the better of him and he decides not to leave the young Ensign Hanson carrying the bag. After a few days of intensive and quite unsuccessful training, Crandall's ship sets off on its mission.
Starting out with a credit sequence and opening 10 minutes that suggests that the film may be as 'wacky' as the title suggests, it gradually settles into humour that is rather basic but passable before going for a more traditional plot that lacks humour and fails to really be that interesting. In some regards the turn away from the 'wacky' first few minutes was a relieve because I really don't like things that knowingly describe themselves as 'wacky' (personal ads with the words 'bubbly' or 'wacky' are generally my idea of hell) and the humour at the start of this just seemed too forced. However once it settles, it settles into humour that isn't very funny but is amiable enough. This continues with the usual 'training' stuff and 'mishaps' that passes for entertainment just about but then in the final 30/40 minutes it tries to actually have a plot and falls to pieces as a result.
By this point I didn't really care about the plot more than a basic description and it was too late in the day to try and suddenly become engaging or exciting. The film also completely drops the humour (for what it was) and creates such a sudden change of tone that its like watching another film something that damages it even further. Of course, its not awful, its just a film of two halves, neither of which are much cop but neither of which are really bad. The cast doesn't help much either since most of them are fairly average and just play to the level of the humour. Lemmon tries hard but cannot do much other than his usual stuff which isn't as good when it is built on material like this. Nelson is about as wooden as you could get and only has presence when he is given a musical number he was a singer after all and never really convinced me as an actor. The support cast are pretty average and you can see their basic characters in almost any other 'useless ensemble crew' movie that you can pick.
Overall this is a strange film that doesn't really work. It tries to be wacky and funny but the material is weak and it never really gets going, with the humour tailing off with every passing minute. When it eventually drops off altogether, the plot becomes more of a traditional war story but by then it is too hard to really care what is going on and it more or less fails too. As a total film it is a strange split; neither of the two halves really work but neither of them are bad. The end result is a film that is just about passable but one that will disappoint many who view it regardless of their expectations.
Starting out with a credit sequence and opening 10 minutes that suggests that the film may be as 'wacky' as the title suggests, it gradually settles into humour that is rather basic but passable before going for a more traditional plot that lacks humour and fails to really be that interesting. In some regards the turn away from the 'wacky' first few minutes was a relieve because I really don't like things that knowingly describe themselves as 'wacky' (personal ads with the words 'bubbly' or 'wacky' are generally my idea of hell) and the humour at the start of this just seemed too forced. However once it settles, it settles into humour that isn't very funny but is amiable enough. This continues with the usual 'training' stuff and 'mishaps' that passes for entertainment just about but then in the final 30/40 minutes it tries to actually have a plot and falls to pieces as a result.
By this point I didn't really care about the plot more than a basic description and it was too late in the day to try and suddenly become engaging or exciting. The film also completely drops the humour (for what it was) and creates such a sudden change of tone that its like watching another film something that damages it even further. Of course, its not awful, its just a film of two halves, neither of which are much cop but neither of which are really bad. The cast doesn't help much either since most of them are fairly average and just play to the level of the humour. Lemmon tries hard but cannot do much other than his usual stuff which isn't as good when it is built on material like this. Nelson is about as wooden as you could get and only has presence when he is given a musical number he was a singer after all and never really convinced me as an actor. The support cast are pretty average and you can see their basic characters in almost any other 'useless ensemble crew' movie that you can pick.
Overall this is a strange film that doesn't really work. It tries to be wacky and funny but the material is weak and it never really gets going, with the humour tailing off with every passing minute. When it eventually drops off altogether, the plot becomes more of a traditional war story but by then it is too hard to really care what is going on and it more or less fails too. As a total film it is a strange split; neither of the two halves really work but neither of them are bad. The end result is a film that is just about passable but one that will disappoint many who view it regardless of their expectations.