A fancy cruise ship is just innocently sailing along, minding it's own business,
when BOOM! out of nowhere a nasty ol' wave flips it upside down and kicks sand
in its face. Now, all of the surviving passengers have to figure out how
to escape this sinking tub of shit before they end up at the bottom of the
ocean.
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE advertises itself as having an all-star cast (and it
does), but I'd wager most modern audiences have zero clue who Shelley Winters or
Ernest Borgnine is, let alone somebody like Red Buttons. But no matter,
the adventure through the capsized ship is what I'm most interested in
and...it's not very impressive. Actually it kinda borders on boring.
After the boat flips upside down, it's decided that they need to journey to the
engine room where the hull is the thinnest. They head in that direction,
but not a whole lot happens. Water splashes about, fires burn and stuff is
upside down, but I never got a real feel of danger or even a sense of where the
hell they where. In DIE HARD, when Bruce Willis was traveling around
inside (and outside) the skyscraper that was super exciting, but here it just
looked like a bunch of actors flopping about on a film set.
Dated special effects, an all-star cast, exciting premise that never pays off,
lots of yelling, weak female characters, boring action scenes, under-cooked
character development, hippie band singing an annoying song, Shelley Winters
swimming underwater, Ernest Borgnine saying "
Holy fuck!", Gene Hackman
holding his breath for over 3 minutes, random heroics. Good for a guilty
pleasure, but that's about it. That said, I probably watch this wet turkey
a few times a year.
Part 2 - Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)
Remake 1 - The Poseidon Adventure (2005)
Remake 2 - Poseidon (2006)
Interesting how the ship is flipping over, but yet the ornaments are
still falling to the floor.