TRAINWRECK: POOP CRUISE

This documentary tells a genuinely gripping true story: a cruise ship stranded for five days without power, toilets, or working kitchens, told by the actual passengers who lived it. The footage is real, the editing is fluid, and the small cast of interviewees makes the ordeal feel personal rather than sprawling.

But the story the filmmakers chose to tell alongside the disaster is a problem. The dominant worldview here is materialistic and self-focused — people talking mainly about themselves, their comfort, their next drink, their next hookup. Drunkenness is treated as a fun escape rather than a loss of dignity, and the film leans hard into toilet humor, crude language, and sexual content, including an animated depiction of sex.

There are brief bright spots — a father's protective love for his daughter, a shipboard Bible study, a chorus of "Amazing Grace" — but they're outnumbered by everything else on this ship. Watch it at home if you're an adult curious about the true story, with your guard up. It's not for family movie night.

In February 2013, the cruise ship Carnival Triumph set sail from Texas with over four thousand passengers aboard. A fire breaks out in the engine room on the return trip from Mexico. It's put out quickly — but not before it knocks out the ship's power for good, leaving thousands of people stranded at sea with no toilets, no air conditioning, and no way to get home.

Three stars means this is solid, well-crafted nonfiction filmmaking, even where its content falls short. The original footage from the actual event is organized fluidly, and the decision to interview a manageable handful of real passengers and crew — rather than dozens — gives the film a personal, followable through-line. The documentary succeeds at what it clearly set out to do: show just how dire conditions became for thousands of people with no basic amenities.

Where it falls short isn't craft but choice of focus. The filmmakers had access to a survival story with real tension and, apparently, real moments of faith and family loyalty — and chose to foreground partying, sex talk, and toilet humor instead. Good filmmaking in service of a shallow lens.

There are glimmers of something better here. A father speaks with real conviction about protecting his daughter. Passengers hold a Bible study in the middle of the crisis. Someone leads a chorus of "Amazing Grace." For a moment, the film touches what a disaster can reveal about the people who love each other and the God some of them still turn to.

But that's not the film's center of gravity. Its dominant worldview is materialistic and romanticist: people are shown caring mainly about what they can get and how they feel, and drunkenness — even the kind that leaves people "with no dignity" and "not remembering a thing" — is framed as a good time rather than a cautionary tale. Sex is discussed casually and depicted, including through animation, as just another feature of cruise life. The overall effect isn't a story about crisis revealing character; it's a story about self-indulgence continuing right through the crisis.

Scripture tells a very different story about people in trouble at sea: "Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress" (Psalm 107:28). This documentary shows people singing that same hope in the middle of their storm — and then largely looks past it.

There's a genuinely compelling survival story inside this documentary, and it's well told. But the filmmakers surrounded it with heavy language, casual and animated sex, nudity, and drunkenness treated as a good time — a lot to wade through for adults, and far too much for families. Our answer stands: wait for home — adults only. Looking for something the whole family can watch together instead? Start with our latest.