Poseidon Sucked!!!!

Poseidon - This movie deserves to sink!

Wow, I got back from the theatre a little while ago after watching Poseidon and I am still trying to recover. It was an awful movie. I know what you're thinking, "What the Hell did you expect?" And yes, you are right. I should know better, but I am still amazed at how disappointed I get after seeing many of these atrocious big budget Hollywood flicks that looked interesting in the trailers or commercials and then turn out to be more moronic and cheesy than a daily marathon of 'Full House' episodes. It really sucked... and here's why:

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Let me first say that if you want to see this film, you should probably not read this because I am going to go into a lot of detail. Other than mentioning exactly who lives and dies in the movie, there's not a lot I would be ruining for you since it's a remake and everyone already knows the basic story. However, I might end up revealing something that would detract from your movie going experience... oh fuck it! This movie blows and Ill be saving you hours of your life and $10 if you continue, so read it and avoid this ridiculous pile of Hollywood dogshit.


"Yeah, I'm a gambler, I'm hot and I have piercing blue eyes. That's how you know I'm your hero for this evening."


Freddy and Mia: Token minorities and doomed from the start.


"I play an asshole gambler in this? God, I wish I had my brother Matt's career."

Now, I loved the original 70's film, The Poseidon Adventure. Not because it was a great piece of art, but because it was a camp classic with some awesome scenes and well thought out ideas. It was directed and edited with a real sense of timing and it had a little breathing room in between action sequences to allow for some character development. It also starred some real actors and personalities that made you want to root for them as they tried to make their way to the bottom of the overturned boat to be saved. I wish I could say any of that was true for the new film, but alas, I can't.


If I had known how bad the movie was going to be, I would have been cheering and rooting for the tidal wave during this scene.


Go wave, go! Harder! Harder!


If only the water could also wash away my memories of this film.

Let's start with the cast then. The movie has some known celebrities and even a few good actors. Unfortunately, the movie requires not one ounce of real acting. Seriously, they could have replaced everyone in the film with my West Virginia hillbilly family and it wouldn't have been any worse than it was. No acting was required and if my Uncle Lowell had played the part of Kurt Russell's character, it would have been the same movie. From beginning to end, the basic premise of each scene is as follows:

"Hey, there's a hatch, let's go there."
"Okay."
"That looks sort of dangerous."
"I know, but the water's coming, so we don't have a choice."
"Hold your breath and grab onto me."
"Okay, don't let go."
{They swim thru water, climb thru tight spaces and step over dead bodies}
{Coughs, water gushes out of mouth, coughs again, intakes air}
"I don't think **** made it. Sad. Let me sit for a second and ponder."
"Where to now?"
"Hey, there's a hatch, let's go there."

-Repeat multiple times-

"Alright kid, go thru this hatch and look for other hatches for us to go thru."


"Where did my A-List career go? Is it in here?"

Really, that's the movie in a nutshell. To say that there was no character development is an understatement on the level of, 'Anna Nicole Smith is just a tiny bit nutty'. Seriously, there is absolutely NO (I repeat, NO) character development. If you've seen the 70's original, then you certainly remember the characters and their backgrounds: Gene Hackman's conflicted priest who likes to challenge God; Ernest Borgnine's jealous angry cop who really loves his wife despite her very unlikable qualities; Stella Stevens' nagging sexpot wife that pushes all her husband's buttons just for fun; Pamela Sue Martin's innocent and pretty teen protecting her precocious little brother; Red Button's sad lonely widower who latches onto the in-shock ship singer; Carol Linley's scared and in-shock singer who's just lost her younger brother musician during the boat's overturning and she has to be constantly cared for all thru the rest of the rescue; Roddy McDowall's fey, but very stable and calm ship employee; and most importantly, Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters' in love and crusty old Jewish couple who just want to get out so they can see their grandchildren one more time. And that's just a very brief outline of all the information you get to know about the characters. There's much more, but too much to list here.


The original Poseidon Adventure cast. You are sorely missed.

Now let me give you a breakdown of the new movie's characters and ALL of the background info you are given about them (BTW, they are all different characters than the original, but I won't use their character's names since I don't remember any of them and neither will you - it's easier to remember them as the cliqued 'types' they are). There's Josh Lucas' pretty gambler (that's it - nothing else - he gambles and he's pretty); Kurt Russell who was a former firefighter and the mayor of New York City once (Mayor of NYC? Who writes this shit? During the movie, I kept flashing to images of Ed Koch heroically swimming around in Kurt Russell's role); Emmy Rossum, pretty daughter of the former mayor, who thinks he's too controlling and doesn't want to tell him she just got engaged to her even prettier boyfriend; Mike Vogel as the pretty boyfriend (that's it - he's an attractive boy - the only thing you learn about him in the entire film is that he was never on his high school swim team - I swear, that's it); Jacinda Barrett as the single Mom with her kid (once again, that's it - she has a son and the son has her - absolutely nothing else about them, nothing!); Richard Dreyfuss as the suicidal gay architect who was just dumped before the boat left port (there's a wimpy half assed suicide attempt by him at the beginning of the movie and then he quickly becomes the most quiet and faceless person in the group for the rest of the movie); Kevin Dillon as an asshole gambler (again, that's it - he's a gambler who is an asshole - absolutely nothing else); Mia Maestro as a foreign stowaway trying to get to her sick brother in NYC; and Freddy Rodriguez as the ship's Hispanic kitchen help who stowed the girl away and ends up being the quick group sacrifice near the beginning (really, they actually sacrifice him so they can continue on - more about that later).


"I'm no longer the ugly lead singer of Black Eyed Peas. Now, I'm a minor D-List actress playing an ugly lead singer in a movie. Will.I.Am can go suck it!"


"First, The Phantom Of The Opera and now this? My film career is as doomed as this ship."


"Why am I playing this minor 5 line part? Don't you know that I have an Emmy for Homicide: Life On The Street? Get me my agent!"

Okay, now that you know the cast and their... uhhmm... 'characters' (I use that term soooo loosely), here's a little rundown of exactly what happens:

• In the first 10 minutes, all the characters seem to have a basic setup brush with each other somewhere on the ship so that they can recognize each other after the boat turns over.
• Everyone goes to the ballroom for the New Year's Eve party where captain Andre Braugher (why the Hell did he take this minor role in this dreck) makes a weird statement about Poseidon and then introduces the night's singer (it's Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas as the lead singer - fug as ever).
• The rogue tidal wave comes towards the boat and the on-deck crew starts to turn the boat around so it can be completely sideways when the wave hits it for maximum rollover capability (dumb asses - didn't they ever overturn their toys in the bathtub as a child? If they had, they would have known they were doing the exact wrong thing during a moment like this).
• The boat flips in a slow orgy of explosions and falling digital bodies, yet it's all strangely bloodless.
• Everyone mills around for a minute or so after the overturned boat settles, but they don't seem to care that all their friends and loved ones are dead because you don't hear anyone screaming or crying.
• Loner gambler Josh Lucas decides to go up to be rescued, but gets talked into helping Kurt Russell find his daughter in the disco first, all the while bringing the kitchen employee, the old gay man, the single woman and her kid along to slow him down.
• They cross an elevator shaft with the ship's low-paid kitchen employee doing most of the work while he lets everyone else go first and follows up at the end. The kitchen help almost falls and grabs the gay man's leg to try and save himself as they hang in the elevator shaft. The elevator above starts to jerk and fall. The other characters scream and beg the gay man to kick off the kitchen employee from his leg so he can save himself. The gay man complies and kicks the kitchen employee in the face so he falls to his death and they pull the gay man to safety. Now let me just stop here and say something. I would typically think of it as a major sign of progress for an action movie to have all the characters rally around a gay man and help save him from certain death. However, if he is a gay man that was about to commit suicide just 30 minutes earlier and he is now killing the one person that had risked his life moments ago to let him go first and saved the gay man's life, then it sort of negates that progress, doesn't it? Especially if they don't even show the gay man demonstrating any remorse afterwards or even being a little sad that he just kicked a brave man to his death so he could save his own pathetic ass. At least the gambler is upset enough to let out a long slow breath to show that he is a little sad and needs to regroup before continuing. No one else seems to much care - he WAS the Hispanic help after all.
• They get to the disco and find the mayor's daughter, her severely injured pretty boyfriend (who's leg should be completely crushed), the stowaway and the asshole gambler. By the next scene, the boyfriend's injury has been forgotten and he stops limping altogether.
• They start climbing up to the bottom of the ship. The asshole gambler cuts in line in front of the mayor's daughter as they cross a makeship bridge and has a little tantrum. He immediately is crushed to death. Gee, I didn't see that one coming from a mile away.
• Meanwhile, back at the ballroom, the supposedly waterproof room that the ship's captain had told everyone was safe, starts to fill with water and he realizes that all the people he made stay there are about to die. He looks at the singer (Fergie) with a look of, "Oh Well, what can you do?" and she then looks at him in a close up shot (I threw up in my mouth a little here and things are hazy to me about what happened during the next couple of minutes - I believe everyone died painfully, especially Fergie).
• So, the climbers now see all the water rising and have to go up through tight vents where they can build up obvious and un-needed suspense and the kid saves the day because he has tiny girl hands (don't ask - just know that it also involves a cross and a screw).
• They then swim through lots of stuff and the stowaway ends up getting caught on something, bumping her head and then dying. Everyone looks sad for only about 10 seconds because she was Hispanic too (but not even the good kind of US Hispanic) and was even worse than the kitchen help, because she never even paid for a ticket on the boat.
• They climb and swim some more. The kid gets stuck behind a screen as the water rises while his Mom is on the other side basically telling him he's going to die, but that it will all be okay. Unsurprisingly, the gambler saves him, but you never know how he performs his kid saving magic.
• In another room, the former Mayor realizes they have to stop the engines so the propellers will quit and they can climb out that way. In order to do this, he decides he needs to swim to another place under the water and turn off the propellers, but that it will take too long and he will probably drown (don't ask me how he knows where this room is or how he knows what to do once he gets there). The pretty boyfriend then says that he will do it himself because he has the most chance of making it since he is young and virile and the Mayor is an old fart. The Mayor agrees, so the daughter gets upset and while the boyfriend consoles her, the Mayor jumps in and takes care of the job himself. During this scene, I was thinking that he must've been a Democratic Mayor, because a Republican would have pushed the boyfriend in to do it and then pushed his daughter in after him to guarantee the job got done. To be honest though, it seemed obvious to me that the boyfriend was making an empty gesture and knew that if he turned his back to the Mayor and held his crying girlfriend for a few minutes, the Mayor would just get fed up and do it himself. Pretty and smart - the boyfriend is my favorite character.
• So the Mayor dies and minutes later, the gambler also sacrifices himself, but he doesn't end up dying because he's too pretty and they may want him for the sequel.
• As they all jump out of the ship into the dark waters just seconds before it sinks, they luckily have an empty inflatable raft waiting for them right there at the one place they happen to be. Uggh! Honestly, it made me want to scream.
• So all the pretty young straight white people survive and they also let the old gay cowardly murderer live (their one concession to political correctness?).
  

"Kick the minority in the face! Kick him if you want to live."


"Yeah, I know you just murdered the guy who saved you, but he was a token character. What'ya gonna do?"


"Please hold my hand... and don't kick me in the face sending me to my doom. I'm the pretty boyfriend and I deserve to live."

Okay, those are the characters and that is the breakdown of everything that happens in the film. So here are my questions:

1. Why is the movie so badly edited? It's horrible. Nothing flows and there are tiny little things that some of the characters do or say that makes me think there was much more character development and important scenes that must have gotten cut by a movie studio exec who came in and said, "Cut out all this other boring character stuff and make it non-stop action from beginning to end." For example, when the gambler originally meets the single mother, he asks her why she is at the captain's table that night and says she must be somebody important. Unfortunately, you never find out who. She also is the one who bandages the pretty boyfriend's injury and makes the assessment that it should be okay despite it being completely crushed. Is she a doctor, nurse, faith healer, massage therapist? They never tell you who she is or what she does and that is true of almost everyone in the movie (except for the brave former NYC Mayor/fireman - yeah, right! If current mayor Michael Bloomberg were in that boat, he would have peed himself, ended up getting stuck in the air vent and ultimately drowned).
2. Why didn't they spend at least 10 minutes or so on the people in the ballroom after the boat turned over? That's the best part of the original film. The life saving stuff involving the tables and catching the people in the table clothes was really suspenseful in the first movie. They make a pathetic 10 second attempt to recreate it, but it just reminds you of how much better the original was. There's no Christmas tree climb either or arguments over the the best thing to do to save themselves. Instead, the decision is made within seconds and they basically just walk up to the door and leave. The original was leaps and bounds better.
3. Why are there no old people? Honestly, it's a cruise ship for God's sake! Old people are usually 90% of the people on a big boat. The original film was mainly older people and Shelley Winters was the best and most memorable thing in the movie. She deserved her Oscar nomination for playing the doddering former high school swim champ who sacrifices herself for the others as her heart eventually gives way. It's total camp, but she makes you believe every second of it and gives it her complete conviction. There won't be any Oscars for this new mess of a film though. None. Not even the 2 original songs that Fergie sings in the ballroom are good enough to qualify for the Best Song category. Man, this movie could have really used some Shelley Winters in it. I think she died this past year just so she wouldn't have to see this utter travesty of a film.
4. Is it really that easy to get a foreign stowaway on board a ship and then get her off again in the US? In this day and age, I'm thinking no, but the movie makes it look awful easy. I hope the terrorists don't watch this movie and get any ideas.
5. Why is the movie only 1 hour and 40 minutes long? Seriously, Summer action movies are supposed to be much longer and as horribly as this was edited, it could have used another 50 minutes to flesh out the characters and situations. Although, I don't even think that would have saved the movie from sucking like a big black hole.
6. Did director Wolfgang Petersen blindfold himself and use earplugs while he was making this piece of crap? He's always been a little bit of a hack in Hollywood, but this movie is the hackiest of them all and I can't believe this is the same director that made Das Boot. It's like finding out that Martin Scorsese also directed the movie White Chicks.
   

"You and the kid stay back. There's bad movie dialogue in here and it could be dangerous to your careers."


Just looking a little tilty in the original, Shelley Winters out acts everyone in this new film.


"Kurt, look over there and see if you can find a better script for me to direct."

So that's it. Poseidon was stupid, horribly written, awfully directed, amateurishly edited and in need of any actor with a personality. I now really hope that my earlier estimate that it would have a great opening weekend is completely wrong. JM's 5/12 Weekend Film Forecast This movie deserves to sink to the bottom of the ocean and stay there.