The movie: Poseidon The director: Wolfgang Petersen The stars: Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfus, Jacinda Barrett
Like the passengers aboard the doomed titular ocean liner, most filmgoers who venture into theaters to see “Poseidon” won’t know what hit ‘em until it’s too late. This $160 million paean to overkill (and that’s meant in the literal sense) is a “rogue wave” of an action flick designed to swiftly overwhelm its viewers then gradually drown them in senses-battering computer-generated imagery, stilted dialogue and cringe-inducing melodrama. The main characters are wantonly devoid of dimension and the plot is ludicrous, but disaster-meister Wolfgang Petersen (“The Perfect Storm,” “Das Boot”) deserves credit nonetheless for ensuring that “Poseidon,” if nothing else, will leave audiences breathless. Filled with relentless action and enough cheese to feed an army of rats or Hollywood development execs, this mindless remake is, quite simply, one of the most entertaining really bad event movies ever made.
“Poseidon” offers a boatload of preposterous circumstance and prodigiously silly moments that, unintentional as they may have been, are guaranteed to keep you in stitches long after the boat and the closing credits have rolled. For starters, the story takes place on a cruise ship, so where the hell are all the old folks? What’s the point of venturing to the multiplex to watch pretty young hipsters in the water with no chance of making it, when it’s so easy to TiVo the hot tub scenes from “8th & Ocean”? Oh, and ya gotta love the almost instantaneous transformation of Josh Lucas’ cocky, self-centered professional poker player into the chivalrous love spawn of MacGyver and David Blaine. Then there’s the scene in which “Six Feet Under’s” diminutive Freddy Rodriguez hangs from the leg of Richard Dreyfus’ gay, suicidal millionaire in a fiery elevator shaft as a hysterical Lucas screams, “You’ve got to shake him off or you’ll both die!” at the guy who won the Best Actor Oscar for “The Goodbye Girl.” A solid 9.4 on the “Did That Really Just Happen?” scale. Kurt Russell pitches in solidly as ever as the second-fiddle hero, proving in one looooong improbable underwater sequence that Shelley Winters ain’t got nothing on him.
