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The Poseidon Adventure [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC)


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Not great, but not bad either
Review date: 2006-10-04 Rating: 8 out of 10

When i watched this series, i found parts of it good, but other parts awful, they'd turned Poseidon into a terroist attack, when it was originally turned over by a wave. After watching it again I found the CGI bad in some parts but ok in others, also the acting was good throughout. Some of the death scenes were good, but one was confusing, one character swam under water to get to the next level, and died somehow, it seemed a very peaceful death anyway.
All in all, bad CGI but only ok story, good acting and some unexpected turn of events.

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Reviews


stink or swim ...
Review date: 2006-04-15 Rating: 2 out of 10

In 1972, „The Poseidon Adventure" - the unforgettable movie about a capsized cruise ship and the desperate struggle upwards to safety of its survivors - set new standards amidst the flood of disaster movies which swept through the cinemas in the 1970's. Somehow it succeeded where all the others failed - despite some admittedly cheesy moments it managed to engage, thrill and captivate the audience. And along the way it gave us some of the most iconic images of this genre: The upended christmas tree becoming an escape ladder; the little boy's dilemma in the upside-down men's room, the group of disoriented, zombie-like passengers filing past in the wrong direction, to name but a few ... It is hardly surprising that, amidst the flood of remakes which sweep through the cinemas and across the small screen today, someone came up with the glorious idea to „revive" this cult classic - twice, in fact, once for the silver screen and once for TV. This is the TV version. Now, despite all its limitations and restrictions, TV has produced some stunning mini series in the past and, undoubtedly, will continue to do so. This two-parter, though, is not one of them.

I find it hard to admit, but this „Poseidon Adventure" is doomed to sink right from the start (and I do apologize for the awful pun but it is, sadly, in keeping with the reviewed material). To up-date the story - and to stretch it sufficiently to fit into two parts - we begin with the by now prerequisite dastardly and somewhat Arabic looking, Russian looking, Irish looking terrorists planning a number of major blows against the evil American Empire, by land, air and sea. Luckily, they are stopped and killed by DHS agents, but not before setting one of their plans in motion: The sinking of the cruise ship SS Poseidon (using bombs which are altogether too reminscent of another sea-borne disaster movie, „Juggernaut"). The reason for chosing this target in particular? Well, all the other, more logical targets are too well protected ... Not very convincing? Sadly, this kind of sloppy, listless plotting is the hallmark of the boring, uninspired and incompetent script, complemented perfectly by the boring, uninspired and incompetent direction.

Quite honestly, I would have expected so much more - Gallico's original story has so much to offer and the cast boasts many decent actors. But whereas in the 1972 movie version the actors managed to rise above the mediocre script and invest their characters with real emotion, here, in the almost 3 hours long version, they have absolutely no room to develop. In fact, the characters are so empty and superficially drawn that they would have needed to be fleshed out just to become mere stereotypes! Rutger Hauer obviously labours under the misapprehension that his character's first name is „Bishop" - he has absolutely no spiritual or religious dimension, and if he has any sort of crisis of faith I must have missed it when I blinked. Adam Baldwin, as DHS agent Mike Rogo, is the tough-guy professional, I guess: His job seems to consist mainly of bullying and suspecting everyone around - apart from the real terrorists on board. Peter Weller, as the ship's captain, seems to have lost all ability to deliver his lines without inexplicably pausing after every second word. Bryan Brown, who has given us so many marvellous villains over the years, obviously decided that this role would be the right moment for an image change, thus cold-hearted reality-tv producer Jeffrey Anderson comes across as slightly less menacing than Winnie the Pooh. And I won't even mention Steve Guttenberg and his utterly annoying family ...

The DVD offers decent - full screen - picture quality and 5.1 Surround Sound, interviews with members of the cast, and a „director featurette" (in which John Putch describes the filming and the set in an utterly bored voice ... Did you know that they actually had to turn the whole set upside down? Amazing, isn't it?) The DVD version also proudly claims to contain 40 additional minutes of never-before seen footage. This can only be classed as inhuman cruelty. Quite often, such out-takes consist of scenes which give more background and depth to the individual characters and the story, but, with all the gigantic holes in the plot and the excruciatingly lifeless characters, I fail to see any improvement. This TV production should by rights be called „The Poseidon Disappointment", as it manages to waste a good cast, a thrilling story line and, obviously, a fair amount of money to deliver one of the most unadventurous disaster epics of all times.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Bryan Brown
C. Thomas Howell
Steve Guttenberg
Rutger Hauer
Adam Baldwin

Creators:
Adam Baldwin (Primary Contributor)
Rutger Hauer (Primary Contributor)
David Wicht (Producer)
Frank Q. Dobbs (Producer)
H. Daniel Gross (Producer)
Jon Brown (Producer)
Larry Levinson (Producer)
Bryce Zabel (Writer)
Paul Gallico (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Platinum Disc
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc
EAN: 0096009426996
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Colour, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, NTSC,
Release date: 2006-02-14
Universal product code (UPC): 096009426996
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 174 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2005-11-20
Language: English (Original Language)

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