"Poseidon" is a disaster movie, a genre that is as commonly seen during the summer as cold weather forecasts are seen during the winter. Disaster flicks have been around for as long as Hollywood has had the ability to blow up as much stuff as possible.
Wolfgang Petersen's remake of the 1972 blockbuster hit, "The Poseidon Adventure," gives viewers a familiar formula that viewers should be sick of by now, but audiences just can't seem to kick the habit.
The new version begins on New Year's Eve as a cruise liner named "Poseidon" passes along the Atlantic Ocean on its way to New York City. For those unfamiliar with the plot of the original film, as the ship is heading toward its destination, a massive rogue wave hits the ship so hard that it flips upside down.
Petersen has done plenty of films involving water before ("The Perfect Storm," "Das Boot"), and though "Poseidon" is a bit over the top, no one could have pulled it off better. Petersen does everything possible to make sure this scene is as face-smacking and body-rocking as possible. Whether it's setting a group of crew members aflame with a flash fire or dropping a passenger from several stories straight down to the lobby floor, audiences will be thrilled.
So now, the passengers and crew who were once on the very top of the ship are now on the very bottom.
Led by ex-Navy man Dylan (Josh Lucas), a group of passengers decides to find a way to what is now the top of the ship before the entire vessel is engulfed in water. They eventually run into more passengers and plenty of problems that keep the movie afloat.
It has already been stated that this movie runs by the regular formula for a disaster film, which of course means that it is very predictable and always over the top. That does not mean that Petersen delivers scenes that are not suspenseful. Instead, the scenes make the audience squirm in their seats for every second that the shot is on the screen.
In what is probably the film's best scene, Petersen has the passengers stuck in a vertical shaft because the vent holding them in is screwed to the ground. On top of dealing with the problem of being stuck in this very snug shaft, they also have to worry about the water level that is slowly but surely rising above each of their heads.
The timing of the shot and its ability to make the audience feel just as trapped and terrified as the passengers in the shaft make it one of the more suspenseful and enjoyable scenes in the film.
Another fun aspect about "Poseidon" is it consists of a fairly large ensemble cast, and there isn't just a single superstar in the movie. This means that the count for the amount of famous actors who are killed off constantly rises one-by-one. Now of course, the audience is not always rooting to see a character killed off, but it does tend to make one smile every so often when a particular character meets his or her gruesome and nasty end.
Like every disaster film, "Poseidon" has plenty of flaws, such as how every audience member can predict when the next character will be killed off, or how people are hugging and kissing each other when they should be running — or in this case, swimming — to the nearest exit.
In terms of the disaster formula, this film meets the standards that make it just as enjoyable as "Twister," "Independence Day" or the original "The Poseidon Adventure." It is summertime, and everybody needs their regular dose of movie-made adrenaline.
