Poseidon (2006)
Directed by Wolfgang Peterson
Written by Mark Protosevich
Starring Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum, Mike Vogel, Mia Maestro
Release Date May 12th, 2006
Published May 11th, 2006
The 1972 original The Poseidon Adventure was a dopey all star marathon of water logged cheesiness. From Gene Hackman's turtleneck to Shelley Winters swimming, to Red Buttons closeted fabulousness, there is nothing but pure camp fun to be found in this ludicrous disaster epic.
This is why I was not so vehemently opposed to the film being remade. I find it refreshing to find filmmakers leaving the classics alone and attempting to make a bad movie into a good one. The attempt is a miserable failure but at least we aren't left with a shot for shot remake of Psycho haunting video store shelves as the shame of shame.
Poseidon stars Josh Lucas as an inveterate gambler named Dylan who boards the ocean liner Poseidon looking for rich victims to play poker with. Dylan cares about no one but himself, so, of course, when the supposedly unsinkable ship is flipped by a freakishly large wave it is Dylan who must lead potential survivors to safety.
Why Dylan and not, say, the former Mayor of New York and hero fireman Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell)? Probably because Lucas is younger, better looking and studios think he is a star on the rise. At Least that is the cynical answer. The plot however says that Dylan is simply luckier in finding conveniently placed maps of the ship that he uses to find the one spot where people can escape.
Along for the ride, as cannon fodder mostly, are Robert's daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum) her fiancee Christian (Mike Vogel), single mom Maggie (Jascinda Barrett) and her son Conor (Jimmy Bennett), Richard (Richard Dreyfuss) a suicidal gay man and Elena (Mia Maestro) a stowaway.
Together they navigate the upside down ship through fiery galleys, explosions above and below and most perilous of all some of the worst dialogue ever enunciated by professional actors in a major motion picture.
The first Poseidon had some serious cheeseball dialogue, especially from Ernest Borgnine and Stella Stevens as the bickering Roggo's, a pairing that has seen more than one brilliant send up on The Simpsons. Unfortunately even Borgnine and Stevens would be embarrassed by the kind of tripe served up as meaningful dialogue in the new Poseidon.
As an example, check the exchange between Richard Dreyfuss's inappropriately flamboyant Richard and Freddie Rodriguez's Marco as poor Marco is navigating a particularly dangerous corridor. Richard picks this moment, as fire and steam and a quickly falling apart bridge threaten poor Marco, to come flying out of the closet and hit on Marco. It's bad enough to make one wonder if Marco chose the fiery depths of the inflamed water over survival.
The exchanges between Kurt Russell, usually quite reliable even in a garbage picture, and Josh Lucas are just as ludicrous. Listen as Dylan establishes his rebel persona as Russell asks the question we all want to know as the ship begins to sink "Don't you care about anyone other than yourself!". No he doesn't, except maybe Maggie aka the plot device love interest put in place to humanize him, as if a flipped over cruise ship just were not enough motivation.
As bad as Poseidon is, director Wolfgang Peterson is far too talented to make a film so bad it's good. Thus we get some very competent action scenes and some exceptional CGI effects. These elements add up to nothing except incongruity. The competence feels out of place amongst the shoddy whole of Poseidon.
Forget about the media garbage that the disaster in Poseidon is anything akin to the real life disaster of the tsunami or that the passengers' escape is anything akin to watching people flee the twin towers on 9/11. Poseidon is far from a cheeseball for that kind of analysis. Even a wry allusion to these real life disasters in comparison to Poseidon feels crass.
After watching Sony try to sell us Josh Lucas as the hero of Stealth last summer and now watching Josh in Poseidon I've come to the conclusion that Josh Lucas is the New Coke of action heroes. We never asked for him, we don't know where he came from, all we know is that when we went for the new Schwarzenegger or Gibson all we could find on the shelf was this guy.
It's not that Lucas is a bad actor, he was terrific in the little seen dramedy Around The Bend with Christopher Walken, it may just be that action hero is not his thing. Much like his near twin brother Matthew McConaughey, Lucas has that lackadaisical, laid back slacker thing going on. It's an affectation that just does not play in the macho genre but suits him well in movies like An Unfinished Life or his small role in A Beautiful Mind.
As for Kurt Russell in a better movie he could have been a very effective lead. Unfortunately, saddled with a script that gives him one note to play, protective father, he cannot escape the dreariness around him. For me he was the film's most entertaining player but only because during the many, many moments of boredom in Poseidon I would drift off and imagine what Snake Plissken would do on an upside down, exploding boat. I imagine there would be alot of killing and at least one scene of Snake lighting a cigar off of a flaming corpse. Call it Escape From The Exploding Upside Down Boat.
You know a movie stinks when you are dreaming of your own movie while watching it.
It is the rare disaster epic that makes you root for the disaster. Poseidon is that disaster epic.
