THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972)

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.

CHERNOBYL DIARIES (2012)

Seven years before HBO's masterpiece "Chernobyl", a group of privileged American ultradouchers decide it would be a good idea to go on an "extreme tourism" tour of Prypiat, the town right next to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.  Brilliant!  So anyway, these tired-of-living motherfuckers check out the abandoned ruins in a piece of shit old rattletrap with nobody knowing where they are except their lone tour guide.  Things go about as well as you would imagine.  They look at a bunch of old broken down buildings, then when they decide to go home...the truck doesn't start.  Colour me surprised.  I never saw that coming.  Shit happens and one by one our heroes are picked off by mutants.  I'm just saying "mutants" cause we never really get a good look at them...ever.  It could have simply been a train full of malicious, cannibal circus freaks crashed nearby or something.  Anyway, four score and seven cliches later, I was yawning so hard that I barely even noticed the film had ended.

CHERNOBYL DIARIES is a good idea for a movie (even if it actually lifts from THE HILLS HAVE EYES), but unfortunately the execution of that idea is lightweight in the extreme.  Annoying main characters, CG bear, CG fish, stupid ending, zero blood, zero violence, weak acting, unfulfilled promises of nuclear mutants gone wild, missed opportunities left and right, that one nerd from WOLF CREEK has grown a beard, boring photography, zero nudity.

Not the worst movie ever, but I can't think of any reason why you would waste your time with it...I take that back, I did enjoy the one blonde chick pushing her tits out all over the joint. That was amusing.

If you need me, I'll be in my room playing "All Ghilled Up" on Veteran difficulty and punching holes in my TV.

THE DARKEST HOUR (2011)

Reasonably entertaining low-budget sci-fi flick about a group of douchers hanging out at a douche club in Moscow when suddenly the electricity goes out.  When they step outside to investigate they see the entire city is dark and the sky is full of falling lights (almost John Wyndham-style).  One of the glowing balls lands in the street and when a pig approaches the car-size globe, it turns invisible and disintegrates him into a swirl of dust.  Everybody justifiably freaks the fuck out.  Our heroes have a few close calls and end up hiding in the kitchen.  When they emerge a few days later, they discover the entire planet has been taken over by these killer invisible ball things.  Stuff happens.

I'll never watch it ever again, but for a one time watch it was an alright time burner.  Low budget, okay CG effects, okay pace, zero nudity, bloodless violence, no ups, no downs, no surprises.  Just average all the way across the board.  If you need me I'll be in my room reading "The Day of the Triffids".

Somebody should tells those people calmly walking around on their balcony that an apocalypse is going on.