POSEIDON

"You stay here, you die"

It's New Years Eve on the cruise ship Poseidon but as the passengers and crew celebrate, a giant rouge wave is heading towards the ship. As party continues the bridge crew frantically try to turn the ship into the wave but they are too late and the wave hits with disastrous results. With the ship know upside down and slowly sinking, passenger Dylan Johns (Lucas) comes up with a plan to escape to the surface, against the advice of the captain but as he leads a group of survivors out of the ballroom, they realise that they face a race against time to make it out alive.

Hollywood continues to ride the wave of remakes and sequels, letting those small ships of originality pass by but they can they bring anything new to a disaster movie classic?

In 1972 Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall and Shelley Winters battled to survive in the 'Poseidon Adventure' and created an Oscar nominated classic of the genre but as original ideas become washed away by the wave of sequels and remakes, Hollywood thought it was a good time to raise the Poseidon from the depths again. The problem is that this is a movie that really didn't really need to be remade.

Director Wolfgang Petersen completes what some are called his sea trilogy. After the astounding 'Das Boot' and mediocre 'The Perfect Storm', the German director returns to the water again but instead of firing off another torpedo or drowning without a trace, he creates a tension filled, roller coaster of a movie that will have you on the edge seat as soon as the wave hits.

The production design and the visual effects are quite simply stunning, conveying all the grandeur and scope of the ship in both its pre and post disaster forms. The scene as the wave hits and disaster strikes will have you jaw hitting the floor as a relentless wave of water crashes through the ship leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. Petersen and his creative team are merciless in their portrayal of the disaster, killing hundreds of people in a matter of minutes and not just with crashing waves of water. After the wave hits Poseidon itself becomes the threat, the monster trying to cling to life and taking everyone with it. As the ship implodes under the pressure of the relentless ocean and the exploding fires from within the vessel itself, each compartment, galley or room becomes a potential death trap, meaning each turn could become their last. The sets convey this sense of foreboding, as the ship becomes more and more dangerous and the visual and practical effects work makes Poseidon as dangerous as it needs to be.

As with most disaster films the cast are second-class citizens to the disaster. None of the characters have any development time or a chance to establish anything about their backstories except from the most basic of relationships or the just something to establish the type of person they are. Ex-Mayor and former fireman Robert Ramsey, played by Kurt Russell and his daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum) and her boyfriend Christian (Mike Vogel), have an over protective father/daughter relationship storyline. Josh Lucas plays the loner, gambler Dylan Johns who becomes the hero. Richard Dreyfuss is the recently dumped Nelson, who fines a new least for life when faced with certain death. Jacinda Barrett plays young, single mother Maggie James, who you really have to wonder why she is on the ship and Mía Maestro plays stowaway Elena. Each of the characters never really gets much development but this means that any one of them can be killed off at any time.

'Poseidon' is your typical, all action blockbuster that will entertain you as soon as the wave hits. The tension and sense of foreboding the film projects will have you on the edge of your seat throughout, as death and disaster engulfs you for the duration of the entire movie. The only question you will be asking yourself however, why did they need to remake something that already did all this anyway.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

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2006