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Poseidon Reviewed by Rich Drees
Having flipped over a boat before in The Perfect Storm (2000)
and taken audiences underwater in the claustrophobic submarine
Das Boot (1981), on paper director Wolfgang Petersen is probably
the most logical director to helm a remake of the 1972 disaster
classic The Poseidon Adventure. Peterson definitely brings a
strong visual sense to the material, starting with the film’s long
opening shot that swoops around the length and breadth of the great
ocean liner, acquainting the audience with the size of the landscape
our heroes will have to navigate once the plot kicks into high gear.
Thanks to 30 years worth of evolution of visual effects technology,
the capsizing of the Poseidon is a much more powerful and at
times gruesome event than in the original and Peterson is smart
enough to set the stage for various portions of the character’s
journey through the ship in this segment.
But the real strength of any disaster film has to lie with the characters. All the spectacle and adventure will ring hollow if the audience doesn’t care about the imperiled people. Here, however, the film’s zeal to get the ship capsized as quickly as possible leaves the opening moments’ introduction of the characters rushed and perfunctory, leaving the audience with a group of poorly defined protagonists. What cursory information we do learn about the characters leaves little guess work as to who’ll survive to see the closing credits and who’ll sacrifice themselves for the rest of the group’s survival. Kurt Russell’s overly-protective father, who doesn’t trust his grown daughter alone with her boyfriend for five minutes, comes across as a caricature of a 1950s parent. Kevin Dillon’s sleazy gambler “Lucky” Larry is such a sexist jerk – think a broader, more loathsome version of his brother Matt Dillon’s private detective character from the 1998 comedy There’s Something About Mary, right down to the same mustache – that one finds themselves actively rooting for his quick demise and speedy exit from the film.
Unfortunately, the script by Mark Protosevich never allows the adventure to change or affect any of the characters. The survivors at the end of the picture are little different from how they started the picture, albeit with clothing slightly more tattered and waterlogged. As such, Poseidon does not sink so much due to an improbable, mid-ocean tidal wave but due to a bad script. |
The passengers of the cruise ship Poseidon have their New
Years Eve celebrations turned literally upside when a gigantic,
mid-ocean “rogue wave” (which do exist according to Wikipedia)
capsizes the luxury liner, trapping most of its passengers in its
stately, but now inverted, ballroom. Not content to wait for the
arrival of rescue ships, a small group of survivors led by a
gentlemen gambler (Josh Lucas) and the former firefighter/mayor of
New York City (Kurt Russell) sets out to make their way to safety by
working their way through the ship to the engine room and out
through the now exposed propeller props. Needless to say, the
journey is fraught with danger and not all of the group will make it
out alive. Unfortunately, for the audience watching all this
unfolding on their neighborhood Cineplex screen, it’s hard to really
care whether this plucky group survives or not.