A disaster
film, and Poseidon is a disaster film, requires a
few key elements. First, you have to have an excuse for
a disparate group of people to be gathered together. Then
you have thrown in just a touch of hubris in order for the
gods to be tempted to smite that gathering. Then you've
got to have disastrous peril. Oh, yes, there must be peril.
Irwin
Allen's original The Poseidon Adventure had all that
in spades. Based on a novel by Paul Gallico, it may have
been a little cheesy but it sure got the audience's attention.
With today's technology and creativity, it should have been
a cakewalk to trim the fat of 70's narration and make a
taut, tense film.
In
an effort to not seem too much like the original, Director
Wolfgang Peterson and Writer Mark Protosevich toss out the
characters from the first film. While admirable on one level,
it's a risky move because some of them have become iconic.
The remains reveal our culture's grip on bland handsomeness
without commenting on it.
Instead
of real character actors like Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine
and even to some extent Gene Hackman, we have three interchangeable
thin dark-haired women, strapping men that just ooze both
positive and negative machismo - and Richard Dreyfuss. At
least Dreyfuss is a complicated actor, struggling with character
choices and trying not to find any of the scenery just too
delicious to resist chewing.
After
showing us what an incredible piece of work the good ship
Poseidon is, Peterson begins introducing his key cast in
little vignettes. He's trying to avoid stepping in melodrama,
but these go by too quickly, reducing everyone to caricature.
Kurt
Russell has conflict with his daughter (Emmy Rossum, raven
beauty #1) and her boyfriend in a luxury suite irritatingly
larger than my house. With eyes bluer than the sea itself,
Josh Lucas disarms and charms a couple of women (raven beauties
#2 and #3) with his roguish smile; perhaps deep beneath
that lies a troubled little boy longing for comfort. But
we'll never know.
They
gather for a New Year's Eve celebration, hosted by the ship's
captain (Andre Braugher) and feted by Fergie from the Black
Eyed Peas, masquerading as "…the incomparable Gloria!" As
the wealthy people play, the crew feel that something is
wrong in the air.
It
turns out that Lucas' Dylan Johns is not the only rogue
around, as a rogue wave comes gunning for the Poseidon.
Only those in the control room and a suicidal Richard Nelson
(Dreyfuss) see it headed for them. And it's too late, though
somehow the very sight of it makes Nelson want to live.
Again, the movie just doesn't have time to deal with such
nuance - we've got to get to the end!
So
set piece after set piece tumbles by under Peterson's direction,
racing to a conclusion. Though normally running time shouldn't
be a factor in the quality of a movie, it does seem odd
that Poseidon clocks in at only ninety minutes when
there was room for a little more characterization.
The
staging of every action sequence is admirable. Every obstacle
meets an impressive stunt to overcome it. But it doesn't
matter much who performs it, though you know Dreyfuss isn't
going to come up with any solutions; his character is just
too vaguely fussy.
Here's
where the dark-haired women cause trouble - when so many
characters look alike and, unfortunately, dress enough alike,
it's hard to know exactly who is being imperiled in underwater
scenes, thus really cutting down on audience tension. We
just can't connect.
As
audiences, we do connect with actors like Kurt Russell,
with whom we have a history of sorts, so we can grasp his
basic decency. But playing foil to Lucas, Russell overpowers
the film. Though Lucas may be nominally the hero, as an
actor he's a cultural void. Talented, perhaps, but not yet
projecting any known vibe that helps when a script just
will not tell us who he is.
Technically
proficient, Poseidon feels a little empty. You can
ooh and ahh at the special effects, but the disaster struck
long before the movie opened when the filmmakers decided
that the people didn't matter.
The
rogue wave didn't think the people mattered, either, and
look what happened there.
