 |
  |
|
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
That
Sinking Feeling POSEIDON: Directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Written by Mark Protosevich. Based on the novel by Paul Gallico. Starring Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Jacinda Barrett, Emmy Rossum, Richard Dreyfuss, Mike Vogel and Mía Maestro. Warner Bros., 2006. PG-13. 99 minutes.
What do you want from your disaster movies, your big-budget epics, your action flicks? The answer to this question is probably indicative of your response to Poseidon, Wolfgang Petersen's remake of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure. Should you dare to want cool effects, taut plotting, decent acting, snappy dialogue and interesting, sympathetic characters, you had best look elsewhere. Poseidon's stars are game and its effects are sometimes stellar, but otherwise, the big ship flounders. The film's plot is simple: Big boat, big wave, big problem. Effects-wise, Wolfgang Petersen's third trip to the sea (following The Perfect Storm and the exceptional Das Boot) lumbers at the start with a shot meant to evoke the massive size of the ship. It's enormous, sure, but what skimming along the Poseidon's lines really reveals is that the bulky liner is as clearly computer-generated as anything in Revenge of the Sith. Thankfully, things improve visually as the ship inverts: glass shatters, sparks fly, water rushes, flames billow and underwater explosions go off spectacularly. Before the wave hits, a few rushed scenes introduce characters who clearly won't die immediately because they have names — even though their names are for the most part so unimportant it's often easier to refer to them by the actors' names. Headstrong gambler Dylan (Josh Lucas, recently of Glory Road) leads the gang, with single-mom Maggie (Jacinda Barrett) and her spunky son along for what would have been a flirtation, were the boat not, you know, sinking. Ex-NYC mayor and former firefighter Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell) provides the stoicism, except where his daughter and her boyfriend are concerned. Richard Dreyfuss, as a despondent gay architect, brings a certain elegance to the escapees. Stowaway Elena (Mía Maestro) gets all the sympathy; her terror at being caught between a rock and a wet place, so to speak, is easily the most palpable. These are your potential survivors. Please place your bets now. At times, Poseidon is scary and tense. A cramped ventilation shaft crawl, standard as the idea may be, is hair-raisingly effective. But for the most part it's hard to ignore the awkward dialogue, flimsy characters and screenwriter Mark Protosevich's tendency to layer obstacle on top of obstacle until suspension of disbelief simply snaps. (An absurdly complicated elevator shaft sequence early on is a prime example.) Petersen's eye for claustrophobia, for the terror in the oncoming water, full of confetti and corpses, is downright spooky — but that's the problem. The perils of the sinking ship are often more interesting than the folks aboard, a notion underlined by Klaus Badelt's bombastic score, which pretty much sneers "Nuh-uh!" musically every time one character says to another, "You're going to be OK." The movie doesn't care what happens to whom, and neither do we. Let 'er sink — there's plenty of other summer action on deck.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
