The Poseidon Adventure: Sinking Ship

It’s The Love Boat after a week-long bender as an eclectic group of stock characters try to escape a capsized cruise ship after a terrorist attack on NBC’s low-budget, ultra bland remake of The Poseidon Adventure.

In a lackluster effort to modernize the tale, writer Bryce Zabel trades in the tidal wave, natural disaster element for TV’s favorite plot device - terrorists, complete with icy stares. The movie opens with the break up of a terrorist cell where police discover a triple threat initiative to attack soft American targets on land, in the air and on the water. Unfortunately, the quick thinking criminals were able to destroy the plans for the Poseidon bombing so the ship sets sail with no one the wiser. Luckily there is an undercover Homeland Security agent Mike Rogo (Serenity’s Adam Baldwin) on board who closely monitors the "very international" crew and is almost fast enough to thwart their completely undeveloped mission of blowing up a random cruise ship. In the end, the ship suffers one hit that causes is to flip over and hang upside down on the ocean’s surface. While everyone freaks out a small group, spearheaded by a renegade bishop, try to climb through the over-turned ship to get help.

Although the premise is ripe with family friendly-ish, just enough violence and death to not ruin a Sunday night potential - and the idea of a huge boat bobbing in the ocean is a cool one - The Poseidon Adventure doesn’t live up to it’s name by a long shot. Overused and getting old fast terrorist plot device aside, the movie is seriously devoid of any compelling characters. The cheesy ensemble drama reads like something out of the 1980’s, each one complete with his or her own catch phrase. Understandably, since the boat is populated by thousands of souls and the movie is in effect a military mission search and rescue operation, we never get to know any of the stranded victims, which include estranged couple Richard and Rachel Clarke (Steve Guttenberg and Alexa Hamilton), intimately and have to rely on choppy, forced dialogue and over-composed moments on sincerity to get a sense of what they stand for. The double whammy however is that the actors deliver their irony soaked lines without any real interest, hanging on to their elementary character descriptions for dear life - except for young Rory Copus who provides the film’s only believable moments with his wannabe filmmaker Dylan Clarke.

If we didn’t know any better Poseidon might be a contender to make the best of November Sweeps list if only for it’s "so ridiculous, it’s actually catchy" plot line, but since all of us have seen Titanic, where special effects and character intrigue reigned supreme, Poseidon ends up looking like the ocean disaster’s uglier and less charismatic little sister. Not only does the cliché ridden, predictable plot lack any sympathetic characters, the low budget special effects do more to date Poseidon than to rejuvenate it. Hopefully this made for TV nightmare won’t hinder the more promising film remake due from Wolfgang Petersen (The Perfect Storm, Troy) next year.