Poseidon Sinks; You Don't Have To

What would summer be without a remake or a disaster movie – after all, both genres offer distinct possibilities for a fun time, which is kind of the point of summer to begin with, no? But what do you get when you flatly combine the two (this is too easy)?

A disaster of a remake, that's what.

I told ya it was too easy.

You know what Poseidon (a remake of Irwin Allen’s The Poseidon Adventure of 1972) is all about, though, so you can see where I’m going with this.

When a rogue wave capsizes the titular luxury cruise ship in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, a small group of survivors finds itself forming an unlikely alliance in a battle for their lives.

You’ve got the reluctant hero (Josh Lucas), who ignores the captain's orders to wait below for possible rescue and sets out to find his own way to safety.

There’s also a desperate father (Kurt Russell) searching for his daughter (The Day After Tomorrow’s Emmy Rossum) and her fiancé (Rumor Has It’s Mike Vogel), a single mother (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason’s Jacinda Barrett’s and her wise-beyond-his-years son, an anxious stowaway (Mia Maestro, from TV’s Alias) and a depressed gay man (Richard Dreyfuss).

Determined to fight their way to the surface, the group sets off through the disorienting maze of twisted steel, making their way up the upside down wreckage as the unstable ship rapidly fills with water.

I never had any high expectations for Poseidon, which was directed by disaster-meister Wolfgang Petersen (The Perfect Storm, The Day After Tomorrow). It being a disaster summer movie (though not one of Petersen’s most satisfying), I expected it to be an edge-of-you-seat thrill ride.

Instead, I found it derivative, clumsily edited (especially in the beginning) and written (character development is telegraphed at best, though it is clear that someone really likes Lucas in hero mode), and often cheap-looking (the opening shot reminded me of a beyond enhanced – read faux – architectural rendition). The body count is well-paced, though.

Having said this, Poseidon will probably make a boatload of money at the box office, precisely because it is so mindless. The biggest star of this movie is the rogue wave, of course. It’s too bad that she comes and goes much too quickly.

My Rating **

Photo: Warner Bros.