"That's a nice-a donut."
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Poseidon (2006)
Wolfgang Peterson proved his mettle at deftly creating cinematic adventures on the sea with his classic German WWII submarine epic Das Boot, and then later his summer popcorn ride The Perfect Storm. He's also cleverly manned several other good action movies including Air Force One and In the Line of Fire. But with Poseidon, a remake of the popular 1970s disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, he returns to the water. It's a mixed result, as it is quite solid from an action-adventure perspective, but rather mediocre otherwise.
The story itself is pretty basic: a cruise line is hit by a gigantic "rogue wave" that quickly forms somewhere in the middle of the ocean, the ship is battered and eventually flipped upside down, and then a small group of passengers tries to makes their way to safety and out of the ship amidst a barrage of dangerous hazards and setbacks. Some claustrophobic scenes in the bowels of the ship are well filmed and help to increase the tension of the impending doom, as the water slowly rises after them. The group is a fairly motley crew, with someone for just about every demographic. Kurt Russell plays a former firefighter and ex-NYC mayor; his young daughter (Emmy Rossum) is there with her boyfriend (Mike Vogel); Richard Dreyfuss is a gay architect; Josh Lucas; and then there is an attractive stowaway (Mia Maestro), a woman and her young child. A few other familiar faces round out the cast including Andre Braugher (of TV show Homicide) who plays a ship captain, Freddy Rodriguez (of Six Feet Under) as a kitchen worker, and Kevin Dillon (of Entourage) as a gambler.
The movie doesn't waste much time on character development - both to its credit and to its disservice - and part of that means that the lesser supporting characters are simply there and given no background or character whatsoever. I wasn't even sure of most of the people's names. Peterson tries to follow the Michael Bay / Armaggedon model of success, especially with Kurt Russell in the Bruce Willis role as the hard-nosed, never-smiles father who is overly protective of his daughter and doesn't care too much for her boyfriend. (Want to guess whether or not they reconcile by the end?) As in Armaggedon, Poseidon also has some unusually odd lapses in logic, including the fact that not everything in the boat is actually upside once the disaster strikes - such as stairs, some doors, etc. There are some moments of utter unbelievability as well.
Things get chaotic very quickly though, and once that happens it is literally a non-stop action and dramatic thriller piece until the very end. At a very breezy hour and a half, the decision was obviously made to favor the intense action and set pieces over a longer, but more character-driven drama. So if you don't mind a rather mindless popcorn movie that spans the emotions with excitement, humor, terror and tragedy, Poseidon might be right up your alley. But if you are looking for good character development so that you will actually care or empathize with any of the tragedies that befall anyone on screen, you'll likely be disappointed.
The Verdict: C+.
Michael Bentley 10:08 AM
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