Poseidon DVD Review

"Poseidon" reviews

DVD

Poseidon

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2006-10-06 15:01:14

Provider

MRIB

DVD Review

As one of the defining disaster movies of the Seventies, it was all but inevitable that The Poseidon Adventure would eventually be remade. It must be said that performances by the likes of Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters in the original would always be difficult to equal but, fortunately, this movie doesn't attempt to recreate the characters.

Instead, aboard the cruise ship, there's Richard Dreyfuss's gay architect and Kurt Russell's former mayor of New York. The latter is travelling with his stubborn daughter, Jennifer (Emmy Rossum), and her boyfriend, Christian (Mike Vogel), of whom Robert disapproves. Of the other passengers Dylan (Josh Lucas) is a good-for-nothing gambler who flirts with a single mum (Jacinda Barrett), while Elena (Mia Maestro) is a stowaway, who's intent on visiting her sick brother in New York despite her lack of funds.

When the wave strikes it is Dylan who assumes the role of leader, prompting a spot of male bonding with Russell's character. Dreyfuss too finds a friend in the shape of Elena, whose isolation he alone understands. But really, this is less about human interaction than dramatic action scenes, of which there are several. A scene in which the cast is trapped inside a heating vent as the water rises is particularly harrowing.

As remakes go, this is a sporadically entertaining one.

Copyright © MRIB 2006.