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This 3-D movie, directed by Craig Gillespie (“Lars and the Real Girl,” “Million Dollar Arm”) presents not one but two such specimens of clean-cut manly virtue. Bernie’s counterpart aboard the Pendleton, Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck), is the tanker’s chief engineer, who made the decision to strand the ship in the unlikely event that help would arrive.

Waiting on shore is Bernie’s brand-new fiancée, Miriam (Holliday Grainger), a spunky, doll-faced telephone operator who resembles a young Madonna with an extra coating of dew. Needless to say, the conspicuously weather-beaten inspirations for the characters, glimpsed in photos at the end of the movie, lack the glamour of the actors playing them.

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“The Finest Hours” never departs from a tried-and-true formula, but that’s one of its quaint charms. Although set in the 1950s, it’s really an old-fashioned World War II film and a paean to the “greatest generation.” Instead of Nazis, the villain everyone can hiss at is nature on the rampage.

The crew of the Pendleton makes up the same cross section of stereotypes you’d find in a vintage war film, almost all of them speaking in exaggerated New England accents, but there is barely enough time to distinguish one from another. Because Ray is unmarried, a grouchy seaman suggests that the only reason that he’s willing to take such risks is because he has less to lose.Tweet

Unlike today’s space adventures, “The Finest Hours” doesn’t flaunt the kind of computer-generated effects that turn so many would-be blockbusters into cheesy-looking cartoons. Here the filmmakers strive for authenticity. Especially in the film’s first two-thirds, the most exciting moments conjure a genuine awe.

To reach the Pendleton, Bernie’s 36-foot boat and its crew members, one of whom is played by a sadly underused Ben Foster, must cross a sandbar onto which towering waves crash. The scenes of the vessel climbing one wall of water after another at a nearly 90-degree angle may not be believable, but they stir your adrenaline. They are the main reason to watch the film, which loses energy once the weather calms.