Sadly Over-hyped

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I am amazed that there haven't been many comments about John William's brilliant score! Just listen to the Main Titles it shows an ominous enemy (the rough sea) is battling against them but somehow it also personifies the courage and resolve of the people on board. A most beautiful introduction which should draw people into the movie like it did me when I first saw it at age 10. These Poseidon remakes couldn't even hold a candle to this wonderful score. All in all a fine cast that did a great job despite the rather pedestrian script they were dealt and who can forget "just panties what else do I need" :) For my part Borgnine, Winters, Hackman and an honorable mention to Leslie Nielsen as The Captain and Fred Sadoff as the "bastard Linarcos" If you want to wax nostalgic then definitely watch this fixture of the 1970's.

A passenger ship, on her way to the scrap yard is pushed to her limits by the new owners to save on the dismantling fees. A tidal wave hits her, flipping her over so that all the internal rooms are upside down. A priest takes a band of survivors on a journey through the bowels of the ship in an attempt to survive.....This film has it all, a wonderful build up, some terrific set pieces, and most of all, a band of survivors you actually root for, because the acting is just so good.First and foremost, it's a disaster movie, and probably the most iconic made when Hollywood wanted to destroy everything in the seventies.Hackman is wonderful as the preacher, and his altercations with Borgnine only add to the drama. The last fifteen minutes of this film really hit the emotion button hard, when events take a turn for the worse.It's a grand film, made on a grand scale, and although there was a plethora of films that followed, each ones quality diminishing as the years went on, this still demands repeat viewings.A bonafide Hollywood classic.

I love – and I truly mean LOVE – those typically bombastic and ginormous-scaled disaster movies from the 70s and early 80s, but admittedly they are all exactly the same… The setting and type of catastrophe are always different, of course, but the narrative structure, cast of characters and action sequences are practically always alike! When all hell breaks loose, there's always one atypical hero who stands up and mobilizes a small group of reluctant followers to do the exact opposite of what seems logical and of what everybody else is doing. The group exists of stereotypes that complain the entire time about the decisions that are being made, and several of them obviously don't make it until the end of the movie, but eventually the hero's choices naturally turn out to be only slim chances for survival they ever had! Of course, being released in 1972, "The Poseidon Adventure" was one of the very first big-budgeted disaster movies and one of the first enormous successes of producer Irwin Allen, so it's only logical that it spawned many imitations and that the formula blatantly got copied by Mr. Allen himself. Nearly 45 years later, the film is still very exciting, the sets & stunts still look very convincing (without any computer generated effects) and it's also still extremely realistic when it comes to illustrating what happens when blind panic breaks out. For all passengers and crew members aboard the SS Poseidon, the New Year couldn't possibly start off any worse… Caught in an immense storm, the luxurious cruise ship gets hits by a massive tidal wave and capsizes, only moments after midnight on the 1st of January. With the captain and most of the crew members dead, the slightly controversial but authoritarian reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) profiles himself as the leader and rescuer of as many people as possible. He guides a small group towards the bottom of the ship – since it's upside down – but since they were celebrating the New Year in the restaurant on the deck, they have to climb huge Christmas trees and squirm through narrow ventilation shafts in order to reach the engine room. "The Poseidon Adventure" is incredibly fast-paced, all the big names in the cast depict their roles very energetic and John Williams delivered a tremendously great score. The script contains a few horrible clichés in terms of character development (for example, dominant males and docile women) but luckily the multi-talented actors and actresses deal with it very well. Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and many others deliver stellar performances, and even Leslie Nielsen is memorable in his (too short) role as the amiable captain. Along with "The Towering Inferno" and the original "Airport", this is the most iconic disaster movie of the seventies!

This did not have a very good story line. I do not knew why people like it. It is just boring. I do not knew why it got a 7.1. That is just overrating it. I give it 4 out of 10. Because it is pooh pooh. Stinky stinky pooh pooh. It is find of sad and not fun to watch. It is very slow. I can not believe the same man who wrote a great film like The Swarm wrote this pooh pooh adventure. There should call it The Poseidon Adventure they should call it the pooh pooh adventure. Good actors wasted there talent being in this awful movie. Do not wast your time. And do not wast your money. Do not see this awful movie. It very boring. There so many movie out there better then this one. Do not see it. It is not an adventure it is an argument between Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnie. The Poseidon Argument that is what they could have called it.