Spoiler alert!

Friday in Los Angeles we all went to Grauman’s Chinese Theater to see the much anticipated (for us, that is) new adaptation of Paul Gallico’s The Poseidon Adventure. I knew going into this it was not a
remake of our beloved 1972 The Poseidon Adventure produced by

Irwin Allen and directed by Sir Ronald Neame. So, I went with an open mind, wanting to love this movie. I was looking forward to it. All this press. All of the injuries the actors sustained. All of Wolfgang Peterson’s going on about how his film was different, not campy, and 160 million dollars later you get this 100 minute film with some spectacular effects but no heart.

Like a hollow chocolate Easter Bunny. I was kind of pissed, because the way Wolfgang Peterson was pontificating about filmmaking, and ‘capturing ordinary people in extraordinary situations’etc., well, I was expecting something that rose beyond today’s action films. It doesn’t. It falls woefully short and now I think Mr. Peterson is a kind of full of shit. Poseidon uses the method most action films today use. The dialogue bag. You get a paper bag, fill it with snappy sentences on individual sheets of paper and then have the actors choose slips of paper. Whatever they happen to choose is their dialogue.

Are you crazy?
Hurry!
Try harder!
We have no choice!
The muffin is burning!

I could care less if any of the characters lived or died with the exception of the kid. The capsize had remarkable special effects but was filmed with everything and the kitchen sink squeezed into every frame so it was hard to focus and you just became numb. Individual horror, even in brief intervals is more effective then mass horror. Alternate a bit, Wolfie. The heroes aren’t heroes, and they’re boring to boot. Richard Dreyfuss is one of the more interesting characters and when Richard Dreyfuss is the most interesting thing in a movie you know you’re in trouble. I also laughed out loud at the final twist at the end. It was straight out of Mad Magazine.

That said, there were some truly heart stopping moments. A claustrophobic vent scene, a near watery death for one of the characters that leaves you breathless but these were few and far between. However, I will be seeing it again because

A. I’m a disaster film geek.
B. The capsize is still cool.
C. I have to find the funny parts to add into POSEIDON! An Upside Down Musical… It’s a tax write off.

Filed under: My Way Of Life