“Poseidon”

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Starring: Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett

Length: 99 minutes

Rating: PG-13 for intense prolonged sequences of disaster and peril

REVIEW: 3 / 5

Special effects are what usually put the bang in summer blockbusters, and that’s what “Poseidon” is going to be banking on at the box office, pitting the cruise against Tom Cruise. Wolfgang Petersen, who directed the previous “The Perfect Storm,” makes a splash with another maritime disaster in this remake of the 1972 original.

Disaster hits the luxurious Poseidon cruise ship on New Year’s Eve, shaking the passengers out of their revelry. A rogue, several hundred-foot-tall wave crashes over the decks of the ship, and it unexpectedly flips over. Despite the captain’s orders, Dylan Johns, played by Josh Lucas, a cynical gambler, takes charge to lead a small band of survivors to safety through the open propeller shafts at the bottom – now the top – of the ship.

As a disaster film, “Poseidon” doesn’t fail to deliver on its promise. It offers nonstop suspense, but at the cost of the characters. Despite being a vast improvement on the old classic, Petersen’s version lacks the classic’s character development. They are dropped too quickly into flooded chambers and flaming rooms for the audience to feel properly sorry for them, and no background apart from sparse one-liners sprinkled throughout gives any hint as to who these people are.

Among the passengers are Jacinda Barrett as Maggie, a single mother, on the cruise with her young son. Richard Dreyfuss plays an architect nursing a heartache after being jilted by his lover. Kurt Russell is Robert Ramsey, the former mayor of New York City, onboard with his daughter Jennifer, played by Emmy Rossum, and her fiance, althoughRamsey doesn’t know they’re engaged.

Of course there are moments of family tension. Robert argues with Jennifer, and Maggie’s son gets lost and trapped, but these aren’t enough to really draw the audience into the characters. The acting is over-the-top which is par for such disaster films, but it tries to be serious about it when the original was almost satirical in its overacting. However, given their characters’ sparse background, the actors had to make the most out of the roles they were given.

What Petersen did do well is the changes in character from the original. There isn’t anyone who can be categorized as a certain character from “The Poseidon Adventure.” The characters, however, aren’t the reason anyone sees a movie like this. The special effects, of course, are the strongest part of “Poseidon.” Waves crash over the ship’s deck, mercilessly tossing people into the ocean. High-pressure water surges into the ballroom in scenes reminiscent of “Titanic,” minus the sappy love story. Fires rage through the hull as the boilers explode and people are shaken in the luxury liner as if they were being erased in an Etch-a-Sketch. The film is a nonstop string of explosions, floods and other perils that only a Hollywood actor could survive. All of this leads to high levels of carnage while the audience is left wondering how much more Petersen could devise to throw at these poor souls. The special effects definitely tower over those of the original, and their visual force acts as a lifesaver among an otherwise somewhat waterlogged story.