Hello friends! Did you know that Vivica A. Fox has starred in a string of Lifetime movies, all titled THE WRONG (X)? Over a dozen of them have come out since 2016, and there are two in post-production, everything from the relatively normal THE WRONG STEPMOTHER to the mouthful of THE WRONG REAL ESTATE AGENT. Today I will be discussing something extremely far from our current reality: THE WRONG CRUISE! (Content warnings for drugging, kidnapping, and murder, like, a lot of murder.)
Some kicky salsa music and a shot of an unreasonably large boat introduce us to the concept of: cruise. A scene where an older white lady regains consciousness on the floor of a nice house, frees herself from some restraints, and runs through the woods, only to encounter a man who recaptures her, introduces us to the concept of: THE WRONG CRUISE. Welcome!
Anyway, now Vivica A. Fox, here named Claire Tanner, is looking at Mexican cruises on her phone, but when she selects one to purchase for her and her daughter Skylar, SOMEONE interCEPTS the transaction. Some hacker! In a hoodie! Somehow intercepting the purchase allows him to also instantly pull up Claire and Sky’s banking information, Social Security cards, and birth certificates? Just, beep boop, there they are. Hacking looks really easy. Should I be hacking, instead of being unemployed? Sound off in the comments!
At a high school track meet, Claire’s daughter Sky wins her race and then coldcocks a bully. So Sky’s doing great! Unfortunately, her principal and her mother disagree, and Sky gets suspended for two weeks and then chewed out by her mom. Claire has bigger things to worry about though, because at the beginning of this scene, she’s driving a Mercedes subcompact SUV, and then at the end of it, she’s driving an Escalade. Claire! You are driving a werecar! A car by day, a different kind of car by…slightly later in the day! Claire, shockingly unconcerned about her werecar, scolds her daughter for her recent run of bad behavior, which might force her to repeat her senior year. Sky is surly and resentful, but she does want to go on that cruise. Which she will, because Claire wants to go, and Skylar can’t be trusted by herself. After they argue for a while, Sky goes to her room and looks at pictures of her with her dad, and Claire comes in and says, “I miss him too.” He died suddenly a year ago, and he was the one who did all the parent-y things like show up for track meets. Claire’s sorry she missed it, but she was working. What does she do? I have literally no idea. She wears sheath dresses so it’s probably business or business adjacent. That’s as far as I can take you. Anyway Claire and Sky hug and cry and promise to do better.
Well, I guess they’re going to do better on the cruise, because here it is! A cute guy helps Claire and Sky with their luggage, and then Claire gets a massage while Sky has a weird run-in with the cruise director, who almost plows into her and then enthusiastically speaks several words of Italian for no real reason. When mother and daughter meet up to go shopping (can’t do that on land!) the aforementioned cute guy is there too, and he introduces himself to Claire. He’s Dante, and he’s noticed she’s not wearing a ring. Claire is charmed enough to agree to have dinner with him, and the cruise director is charmed enough to be lurking behind a wall staring at them with satisfaction. I’m sure he treats all the guests with this level of care.
Claire gets FANCY for her date, and Sky announces that she’ll be at the bar while her mom is at dinner. She’s legal in Mexico, but that does not apply on the cruise, so Claire makes her promise that she’ll be smart. The first thing Sky does when she gets to the bar is allow a guy to just hand her a glass of wine he was already holding, but it’s not like she uhhhhh, no, wait, that’s pretty much the worst thing she could do? I hope she was wearing clean underwear at least. The wine haver is named Rico, and he’s sweet and goofy and does not appear to have drugged Sky, but still! At dinner, Dante and Claire eat dinner while the cruise director watches them. He tells her he splits his time between Mexico and the US and occasionally travels via cruise ship because he just loves inefficiency, and asks Claire what she does for fun. She replies, and this is a quote, “every day I’m hustling, and I try to be a good mother,” and adds that she loves what she does even though her late husband did not. What is it! Is Claire a defense contractor? A prosecutor? A telemarketer? Does she do custom porn? What! Is! It! Dante blows right past this and they end up dancing at the bar with Sky and Rico. While everyone is having a nice time, the cruise director sneaks into the Tanners’ room and steals their passports. Claire and Dante go back to Claire’s room and they smooch. Sky pulls Rico into a women’s bathroom and they smooch, which seems way less comfortable to me, she’s just pushed up against a painted concrete wall, but she seems into it. Smooching all around!
In the morning, Dante is still in Claire’s room while the ship docks at La Paz. He talks Claire into taking a day trip up the coast on his sailboat, and they leave the cruise ship while a crew member yells that the boat WILL depart at FIVE pm, whether you are ON IT or NOT. Sky and Claire get piña coladas at a tourist bar, and Claire introduces herself to Rico, who tries to smooth talk her in an endearingly ham-handed way. They agree to meet back at this hellish tourist trap at four, and Claire gets on Dante’s boat while Sky and Rico just kind of wander down a dirt road somewhere. They kind of run out of things to talk about, and Rico says, “note to Rico: be more captivating!” so Sky just dumps her whole tragic dad death backstory on him. Is that captivating? I guess so, because Rico reciprocates with his own tragic backstory of being orphaned and ending up in the foster system, finally ending up with a guardian who gave him a job and somewhere to live, but he doesn’t seem thrilled about it. They arrive at a clifftop with a beautiful view of the water, and Rico says something in Spanish about how her beauty is an entire ocean or whatever, and they smooch some more.
On the boat, Claire gets nervous about making it back in time, so Dante “tries” to “fire up” the “motor,” but wouldn’t you know, the darn thing’s dead! So is the radio! And, now this is interesting, Claire woozily says, “I think I drank too much,” and passes out. I’m starting to think this Dante fellow isn’t totally on the level!
When Claire doesn’t make it back to Captain Juan’s Tourist Bar for American Tourists, Sky starts to panic, especially after she sees a telephone pole plastered with missing persons flyers for American tourists right next to the boat dock. Rico tries to keep her calm but agrees to take her to the government police, since the locals are useless. They head off, and the cruise director, who was obviously watching them, it’s not like a cruise director has a single other task on his plate, calls someone and reports that Sky and Rico just left. Unfortunately, Rico drives out to the middle of nowhere and then holds a chloroform-soaked rag over Sky’s face when she gets nervous about being in the middle of nowhere with a guy she barely knows. I’m sure that after he drugs her, he’ll take her to the government police, because he seems like really sorry about the drugging thing. He calls Dante to tell him he got Sky, because Dante is obviously his guardian, and he also indulges in a flashback to the first scene in the movie, where he kidnapped that lady in the woods. But he’s like, so sorry. He’s so sorry!
In the morning, Claire wakes up tied to a chair in a room whose vibe I would identify as “church office.” She correctly tells Dante he drugged her and he correctly tells her that her late husband had a million dollar life insurance policy. Once she gives him the money, she can see her daughter. Sky is chained to a pew (??) somewhere within earshot of Claire and Dante, because when she yells for her mom they hear her. “Where is she?” demands Claire. “Who knows?” replies Dante, which I think is supposed to sound cool and heartless but actually just sounds confusing.
The doorbell rings, and we see more of this…house? church? hacienda? hacienda that is also a former church? as Dante opens the door to the cruise director. He hands Dante the passports he stole from the Tanners (“yes,” says Dante, coolly and confusingly), and then they stand in the foyer drink some brown liquor and argue about which is cooler: hacking or theft. You know what a cool crime would be, is stealing a helicopter. Imagine! It’s a helicopter and it’s stolen. By you! The cruise director (I do not that he, at this point, has a name) points out that people aren’t going to want to keep taking cruises that people disappear from, and that manipulating the ship’s manifest to show that Sky and Claire arrived back safe and sound is a short-term solution. Their friends and family will notice they’re missing eventually. Consider: golems? They don’t consider golems, and argue about money, finally settling on a $50,000 advance for the cruise director, who doesn’t leave without telling Dante to buy some better alcohol, because he can afford it. Ha ha, zing!
After offering a distraught Rico a perfunctory “this is the last job!” pep talk, Dante drives Claire to a random bank. She tries to tell him that the insurance money is invested in a bunch of different places, she can’t just hand him a pile of cash, but he recites how much she has in her checking and savings and stocks and etc as though it is a counterpoint, but to me that means Claire is correct, she can’t just walk into some random bank in Mexico and get all her money out? I don’t know how money works! But he hands her back her passport so she can “do business” (just like her job, perhaps), puts a gun in a manila envelope, very normal, and they go inside. Dante tells Claire that if she does anything stupid, he’ll have Sky killed, and it wouldn’t be the first time, but lets her go to the bathroom by herself. She immediately sets off a fire alarm and writes “help, Claire Tanner” on the mirror. It seems, to me, Amelia, that it would have been better to write “help” on the mirror without setting off the fire alarm and alerting Dante to her plan? But I’ve never been kidnapped.
Back at the churchacienda, Sky gets herself free of her restraints and runs to one window to see stock footage of the ocean and another window to see stock footage of a big adobe church. Rico comes in to check on her and she’s like, what the hell Rico! and he apologizes because he really liked her. “I really liked you until you kidnapped me!” says Sky, which, whomst. Rico cries and explains that Dante makes him do this, and flashes back to that first white lady again, who Dante ended up killing because she didn’t get him the money he wanted. Dante tells Rico that it’s just business and yells, “it’s us or them! Us or them!” which does not seem accurate, it’s not like this lady was going to suffocate them with her tasteful blouse. Also, they could have just not kidnapped her in the first place. Dante is catastrophizing, I think. But back in the present, Sky tells Rico she forgives him, but he has to get her out of here. He agrees, but Dante and an unconscious Claire have returned, without the money, so Sky has to pretend to be chained up again. Rico confidently tells Dante that ha ha, Sky thinks she’s helping him! Dante teases him that he liiiiiiikes her, but whatever, both the girls are shark bait tomorrow.
At a motel somewhere, the cruise director calls his girlfriend Monica and tells her that it’s almost over, they’ll be taken care of, but then he looks at his bank account and notices that it’s empty. Whoopsy! He calls Dante and asks for that $50,000 now, and Dante agrees. Also, Dante is sitting on a throne in a dimly lit room with a framed photo of what appears to be Bobby Orr, Ted Williams, and Larry Bird. It was pointed out to me that the house from KILLER DREAM HOME was pretty obviously primarily a porno set, and I have to assume this is too, but like really specific porno. Dante heads back to the same wooded area where Rico drugged Sky and pretends to give the cruise director his money but shoots him instead. What an unpredictable development!
While Dante is gone, Rico and Sky get Claire to wake up, and Rico tells them to run into the woods. Is that. I don’t mean to be critical but. Is that his whole plan? He doesn’t even give them a bottle of water or anything! Rico is an unreliable accomplice, and even worse, a bad host.
A blonde woman pulls up to the spot where Dante just killed the cruise director. This is Monica, and she’s looking for her boyfriend Alex (even though IMDb calls him Pat and no one else calls him anything), who said he’d be here, his car is here. Also, she is played by Dominique Swain. She’s been in a few tv movies with Vivica A. Fox, and honestly they’re probably at least as good as that first movie she was in. THE WRONG NYMPHET, I think it was called. Dante pulls a gun on her but then pretends to let her go, until her Subaru’s headlights illuminate Alex’s dead body as soon as she starts her car. Wouldn’t she have seen him when she pulled in, then? It doesn’t matter, she’s dead now. Dante should get a hobby other than murdering people, although it does seem like it scratches an itch for him.
Dante returns to the hacienda all high on murder, and realizes that Sky and Claire are gone. Rico pleads with him, saying he couldn’t let Dante do it again, and Dante just immediately shoots him and takes off in his jeep. What is Dante’s life like? How does he order a sandwich? How many barbers has he murdered for going a little too high on the sides? Does he really like Larry Bird that much?
Sky and Claire run down a dirt road in the woods, and a police officer happens upon them. They’re saved! Oh, no, wait, here’s Dante, and he starts to talk to the cop and then decides, you know what? actually? and shoots him instead. That’s our Dante! An exhausted Claire tells him that she’s tired of fighting and she’ll give him whatever he wants, as long as he lets Sky go. Dante considers the offer and puts both of them in his jeep, whereupon both mother and daughter whack him on the noggin and shove him out of the car. He tries to shoot the jeep as it drives off, but that never works. It’s fine though, he has a plan, and it involves stealing the cop’s uniform and car, and getting on the radio and speaking some unsubtitled Spanish. My Spanish is rusty, but it’s something about two armed women. Uh oh!
Claire and Sky drive the jeep until they run out of gas, but when they pull into a station to fill up, they realize that they’re the subject of a news report about two armed and dangerous women in the area. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, they figure, and steal the gas station worker’s shitty car to drive to an embassy in Tijuana. Sky asks Claire why this is happening, and is totally grossed out to learn that the answer is “money.” It’s true, that is always the least interesting motive for anything. They see a roadblock, presumably set up to trap them, and just like, go around it? This is not a good roadblock.
Time moves strangely in this movie, so the gas in this 1970s sedan lasts until morning. As it’s running out on a dirt road that looks exactly like the one Sky and Rico were flirting on an hour ago, Dante catches up with Claire and Sky, and they’re forced to ditch the car and flee on foot, in broad daylight, across a field, even splitting up for some reason. Dante, also running across a field, catches up with Claire. Before he can shoot her, he has to tell her that he just wanted her money, not her life, but she had to make things difficult, and that put her daughter in danger. That’s not being a good mother, is it? But Claire is a good mother, she’s raised a sturdy and hale daughter, who sneaks up behind Dante and tackles him. The three of them struggle for the gun and Dante ends up with a bullet in his gut.
Some time later, a policeman tells Claire and Sky that they found their passports in his pocket, and a private plane will be coming from the embassy to take them back to the States. I guess their ordeal is over? Is Rico dead? Like, dead dead? Tough break for Rico!
And then they’re home, and Sky is winning another track meet, but this time Claire is there to see it! And what’s this? She has an envelope with her? “I got in? I got in!” shrieks Sky, even though the envelope is small and that means she didn’t get in, but maybe nobody in the prop department went to college. Which, respect. Good for you! Mother and daughter hug and chant, “college bound! college bound!” and that’s it, the end!
Thank you for reading! I have done twenty of these things, a nice round number. I’ve probably written a book, which is very strange to think about! Thanks for sticking around and telling your friends and subscribing if you want!