POSEIDON

"It's not fair who lives and who dies."

POSEIDON opens with a bang; a wide, sweeping shot of the magnificent boat the movie is named after, then transitioning to a shot of Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas, in the role originally played by Gene Hackman in 1972's THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE), the hero of the film, running along the deck. This is all done thanks to the amazing special effects team. If POSEIDON can showcase anything, it is the effects. The wow effect of the original POSEIDON ADVENTURE is gone to most, even though the film was nominated for Academy Awards for Art Direction, Sound, and Visual Effects. The updated version even trounces the visuals of director Wolfgang Peterson's last oceanic epic, 2000's THE PERFECT STORM.

It is when the effects are not the star of the show that the film falls flat on its face. Where the original film had corky, memorable characters given life by such actors as Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, and Shelly Winters, Peterson's update has no life to it. There is only ten or fifteen minutes devoted to any kind of character development before a massive 'rogue wave' tips the boat over (to put it very, very lightly). I'm no physics major, but as far as I know, the condition for wave-breaking is when a wave reaches the shore and enters water that is approximately 1.3 times as deep as the wave is high. But that's beside the point.

Every second of POSEIDON was to me, either love it or hate it. It was either a brilliantly executed action scene from a director who knows how to film them with suspense and flair, or it was tedium that could not be filled by actors given little to work with. It got to the point that at the end of the film, I was just too pissed off to care. The action, while well-designed and executed, got too monotonous. Where there was intrigue in the beginning of the film at how a boat itself could become as dangerous as any rogue wave (when one factors in the sparking wires, gas leaks, etc.), the action became flat towards the end of the 98-minute running span as characters came and went with little impact on their counterparts or audience.

If I have gotten anything out of this summer at the movies, it is that pure style will get a movie nowhere. Without flair or originality, which Hollywood seems to be lacking this year, most films will be forgotten quickly. POSEIDON, I think, will be one of those films.

C