Overrated

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Director Wolfgang Petersen must have a fascination for watery disaster flicks. In his native country Germany, he debuted in 1981 with the phenomenal classic "Das Boot" and a mere 20 years later he made the solid and intense "The Perfect Storm", with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Something must have gone wrong after that, because he also considered it a good idea to remake the 1972 disaster movie classic "The Poseidon Adventure". Bad career move, and apparently Petersen still hasn't recovered from this misfire, because he hasn't made another film since. I'm a giant fan of disaster movies from the 70s, notably the Irwin Allen productions, because they were such mastodons with stellar ensemble casts, gigantic and meticulous set designs and old-fashioned but hyper-expensive special effects. The original, directed by Ronald Neame, is a prime example of seventies' disaster extravaganza. I usually don't watch disaster movies that were made after 2000, because I hate computer engineered decors and effects, and for some reason the scripts always contain a lot more redundant melodramatic sub plots than necessary. I also wished I skipped "Poseidon" for the exact same reasons, by the way. The basic plot remains unchanged; - shortly after midnight on the 1st of January, the giant luxury cruiser SS Poseidon capsizes due to an enormous tidal wave. Most of the passengers and crew are trapped in the ballroom/restaurant on the deck, but only a select group is intelligent enough to understand they need to head towards the bottom of the ship since it lies upside down. Their plan works, but the chances of survival are quite slim, as the climb is long and goes via narrow ventilation shafts and watery death traps. I tried not to get annoyed by the computer animation, because I knew that from beforehand, but there were various other awful aspects to get upset about. The script contains so many dumb errors; I almost couldn't believe my eyes! For example, near the end, a mother suddenly loses her 9-year-old for no apparent reason. One moment they are all together, and the next he's stuck in a slowly flooding cage while the rest sees an opportunity to escape. What happened, he just decided to go for a little walk all by himself? All the lead and supportive characters are implausible and deeply unlikable. That was also the case in the original, but at least they were charismatic. There aren't any performances here like the ones given by Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters or Ernest Borgnine in 1972. Instead we're stuck with a washed-up Kurt Russell, an uninterested Richard Dreyfuss and a pitiable Kevin Dillon whose 'Lucky Larry' character is a complete travesty.

The remake or updated version of "Poseidon" is fine but not satisfactory in comparisons to the first film. The first film was more developed in characters and storyline. The updated version displayed a modern ship and the special effects are special enough but the film is short on time, effects and characters. I would have liked to have spent more time in developing characters to root for in the film. Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss are fine in their roles. Andre Braugher could have used more in the film. There is no song like "The Morning After" to lift us up.

Poseidon had so much hype back in 2006, example the London premiere and everything, well the movie isn't exactly on par with all of that hype, it's worth watching if you've never seen it before, but it's also easily forgotten.They obviously had the tidal wave hit 15 minutes into the film because of time, the movie is only about an hour and forty minutes, so they didn't have time to take things slow, this isn't a 3 hour movie, you have to take that into consideration. The introduction to some of the characters are very rushed, most noticeably Josh Lucas's character and the lady with the kid - that scenario just looks unnatural especially when he says "great kid" as though he's spent an hour with him, but like i said timing was obviously a major big deal, however the director and editor could have brought the tidal wave in 30 minutes into the film having more time for the viewers to get to know the characters. There are a couple of powerful scenes especially the scene where the metal pole or whatever it is falls off and a person is literally hanging on for dear life gripping another person's leg, a person is then told to "shake him off" (to his death) otherwise they both fall down, that unimaginable decision had to be made within seconds.There's a character "Captain Bradford" who is in the similar position to a character from "The Day After Tomorrow" where he suggests that people do this or that to stay alive - resulting in their deaths, very bad advice from misinformation.The CG is quite good, the film score composed by Klaus Badelt is listenable, the movie overall is fast-paced and gets straight to the point.Director Wolfgang Peterson did a great job and so did the actors, there are a few corny lines (example "You were never on the swim team") blame the writer for that!They should have given this film a different title, what does a false god have to do with any of this? a myth (which is a story not based on truth) of a creature being "the god of the sea" still has nothing to do with people aboard an ocean liner, the title would have been better being named after REAL mammals of the sea, THAT would have been more fitting.The so-called "bad guy" Played by Kevin Dillon "Lucky Larry" is not detestable enough to be killed off without a second thought, yes he is a jerk, the worst thing he did was slap a waitress's behind early on in the movie when they're playing poker, and he is a bit rude to everyone when they're trying to stay alive, but he's still a human being, however he did refuse help, so they just told him to do his own thing, which led to his death, but it is how the movie presented that whole situation as though viewers thought that would be okay (and this isn't even that type of film).Poseidon isn't worthy of an Oscar and it never tried to be Oscar Bait, but the film isn't terrible to the point of being boring, there's worse disaster movies out there.

Probably one of the worse remakes ever,even worse than the TV mini series version.In the 1972 classic there was at least some character development so that you at least cared about who lived or died. In this version I couldn't care less if they all went down with the ship . When is Hollywood gonna realize that you shouldn't remake a classic and CGI special effects aren't enough to carry a film you need a Good script to go with it. Why don't they remake a film that sucked and make it better instead of the other way around This film was a huge failure at the box office and it deserved to be.Even the dreadful Beyond the Poseidon adventure was better than this.