>>REVIEW
POSEIDON
STARRING Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell and Emmy Rossum
DIRECTED BY Wolfgang Petersen
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In the ’70s they called producer Irwin Allen the master of disaster because of the way he terrorized characters with all manner of natural devastation. Admittedly, by the time he got around to making Swarm with a no-name cast and killer bees, he had clearly lost his edge, but in 1972, The Poseidon Adventure was a pretty great film.
In fact, the worst you could say regarding that all-star extravaganza about a group of people trapped aboard an overturned oceanliner was that the special effects were a little chintzy. That’s why the big-budget remake Poseidon is so much fun. It takes the high-concept premise of the original, amps up the tension, increases the body count and, with its $160 million budget, ensures that you spend your time worrying about the characters instead of wondering why everything looks so cheap.
That’s not to say that the film isn’t without some questionable computer-generated effects, laughable death scenes or plot holes big enough to navigate a cruise ship through, but fortunately, at an hour and 40 minutes, the movie clips along fast enough that the next disaster hits before you really get a chance to question the last one.
This time out, Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell are the headstrong everymen leading a handful of survivors to safety. Now, a movie like this banks more on memorable set pieces than it does on performances. That said, most of the cast do a fine job. Richard Dreyfuss is alarmingly good and it’s almost a shame that he saved all his subtlety and nuance for a no-brainer like this.
After making Das Boot and The Perfect Storm, director Wolfgang Petersen certainly knows how to shoot on the water (and under it), and in that respect he makes Poseidon a massive spectacle. In fact, the worst thing about this remake is a wildly out of place cameo by Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. Luckily, she drowns early and you can focus on more important things, like Russell’s steely glare or Lucas’s furrowed brow.
Poseidon is a wonderfully predictable pressure cooker of a film, where you can guess who will be the next to die, almost down to the second. If that bothers you, then you never should have been watching the film in the first place. |
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