Poseidon...great sea God [movie]

Posiedon - Wolfgang Petersen - 2006 - 8/10

Summary:

The movie follows the lives of a few people on the humongous cruise ship Poseidon on New Year's Eve. What awaits them shortly after New Years is worse than anything John McClane ever had to face. Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) is a professional gambler on the boat to fleece drunk New Years goers. Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell) is a former Mayor of New York City on board with his daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum) and her fiancee Christian (Mike Vogel). Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) is an architect on board to drown his woes over his lover spurning him for a younger man. Maggie James (Jacinda Barrett) is on board with her son Conor to celebrate New Years in style. Mia Maestro plays a poor women trying to get back to New York City to visit her dieing brother and Johnny Drama, err, Kevin Dillon plays Lucky Larry an all around asshole. After what the captain describes as a 'rogue wave' flips the boat over, Dylan desides he would prefer to set out on his own and try to escape through the ship's bottom than take his chances with the captain's plan of waiting in the main ballroom. Conor overhears Dylan's plan and bugs his mom to go with them. Richard overhears the plan as well and pipes in that being an achitect, he doesn't think the ship will stay afloat upside down. Robert Ramsey joins in that he wants to go with to find his daughter, who is lost somewhere on a different floor. The rest are attracted by the prospect of survival. They have to climb over elevator shafts, through vents, hold their breath through multiple balasts, get past engines...it's not easy.

Critique:

I'll be honest, the title of this article is atrocious, I had no pun to even try working in to the title. Quite frankly, this movie benefits from what hurt "A Scanner Darkly" was hindered by - after hearing how bad this movie was, this movie greatly exceeded expectations. After hearing how horrible this movie was - and taking a glance at imdb message boards where this movie weathered a savage beating from some posters. But more to the point, the movie was really good. It was exciting and original (granted, it was a remake), and it kept me going. It seemed like the movie took a page out of Die Hard - lots of obstacles and they were suprisingly realistic. Everything they did, from the elevator crossing to the ballasts was actually possible. Granted, people are going to gripe about how it was impossible for a boat to flip over and yadda yadda yadda. I dont care. The original was basically the same and everyone loved it, why cant you look past the boat flipping over deal and realize that the movie was actually pretty realistic. Most of what I said above is rambling nonsense. But the movie looked great - great direction by Petersen to keep the shots fast and brief and create the type of panic people should be facing if the viewer had been in the same situation. The dialogue is pretty sharp too - somewhat humorous and you learn about a lot of characters in a little time, and this movie does a pretty solid job with character development. All in all, a pleasant suprise.

Verdict:

Tell the critics to shut up and buy this sucker.

If you liked this movie, watch...
...Die Hard
...The Day After Tomorrow
...The Poseidon Adventure (1972)