Poseidon: Watch it S(t)ink (review/commentary)

I checked out the screening of Poseidon on Tuesday night, along with a packed theater of critics and regular folks.

The nickel review: Poseidon, a $140 million (or so) remake of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure, is not entirely a disaster of a disaster movie.

Then again, it's sad to see how far German-born director Wolfgang Petersen has fallen -- from the acclaimed, intense, beautifully crafted 1981 period piece, WWII war movie Das Boot all the way down to one of the year's slickest and most empty-headed cinematic theme-park rides.

Watch the big boat go boom. Look at the stacks of mutilated corpses, and all the stuff blowing up. See the silly group of people try to make it out alive.

Before I get to more about the movie itself, check out this bit of trivia regarding the production credits: One of the five executive producers is none other than Sheila Allen, better known as the wife of the late Irwin Allen, kingpin producer of '70s disaster movies including The Poseidon Adventure and 1974's The Towering Inferno. Both, by the way, are out on double-disc, special-edition DVDs this week.

Allen went on to produce 1978's The Swarm, which I remember seeing while still in high school, and thinking, "that's one of the worst movies ever made"; and 1979's Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, which I somehow escaped catching.

Sheila Allen appeared, as Sheila Mathews, in both the above movies and later executive produced Lost in Space Forever (1998) and The Time Tunnel (2002) for television and the 1995 documentary The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen (natch).

WARNING: SPOILER OR TWO AHEAD

Poseidon's opening feels like a commercial for Carnival Cruise lines. The camera works its way up from below the surface, circles the behemoth Poseidon, climbs into the sky, watches newly minted action star Josh Lucas jogging around the ship and then moves onto his face. The guy's skin is bronzed to match the color of the sun set behind him, and his eyes practically glow aqua.

In scenes reminiscent of Titanic, shots of wealthy New Year's Eve revelers on the upper decks, in the ballroom and the dance club, are contrasted with shots of the servant class down below, working hard in the huge galley and scurrying along corridors. Get it? The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, the rich folks and the peasants.

Petersen doesn't waste a bunch of time with character exposition, offering up a wealthy former NYC mayor, Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell), who's protective of his pretty, young daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum); dad's trying to decide whether he ought to trust her nice-enough boyfriend, Christian (Mike Vogel), with his child's honor.

Also given just enough screen time to cue viewers about who will be in the lineup of the potential survivors are the aforementioned Lucas, as sly gambler Dylan Johns; gay millionaire Richard Nelson, played by a visibly aged Richard Dreyfuss; attractive single mom Maggie James (Jacinda Barrett) and her too-cute young son Conor (Jimmy Bennett); Mexican stowaway Elena (Mia Maestro), whose gold cross -- Hispanic = Catholic? -- will come in handy at a key point in the story; and Lucky Larry (Kevin Dillon, coming off as a ratlike version of brother Matt), whose fate isn't real difficult to predict.

The disaster-movie formula, of course, doesn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room. And Petersen, with this big of a financial burden on his back, doesn't bother tinkering with the conventions.

First comes the obligatory prelude, complete with a few recognizable faces (Andre Braugher as the by-the-book Captain Bradford, Black Eyed Peas singer Stacy Ferguson as the hootchie-mama band vocalist) who won't stick around for the whole show.

Then there's the briefest of interludes, in the ship's command station, where someone in charge tunes in to some sort of underwater vibrations -- "Do you feel that?," he asks -- and then goes into panic mode, barking at his underlings to immediately change the ship's course.

Next comes the money shot, courtesy of CGI. And yes, it is an exciting moment: A massive wall of water, later called a "rogue wave" by the Captain, slams into the 20-story, 13-deck, 800-stateroom Poseidon and flips it sideways; the behemoth then proceeds to turn completely upside down. Passengers slam into passengers and wash out to sea. Flash fires erupt. As noted previously, stuff blows up everywhere.

And when everything finally calms down, Captain Bradford goes into calm-the-people mode, an effort to soothe himself as much as it is an attempt to reassure those in his charge. He makes his speech in the now-destroyed ballroom, where young Conor winds up under the piano, which is now on the ceiling (formerly the floor).

"We are at most several hours from rescue," the Captain says. "This room is a giant air bubble. We will be safe."

Ramsey, Johns and Co., of course decide to ignore Bradford's advice and take matters into their hands, gathering a few likeminded souls for a trip up to the down side of the vessel where, with any luck, they'll exit through the propeller shafts.

Three of the 9 die, and only one of the deaths (one of the film's stars) is surprising.

Entirely expected, though, as mentioned, is what happens to Dillon's character, who expires virtually seconds after the liquor-sucking meanie utters these words: "You don't just get the name Lucky Larry. You gotta be lucky."

The obstacles, including a vent with a grate that’s locked from the outside, a ballast tank that must be filled with water before its escape hatch will pop open and free its inhabitants, and a lake of fire, are so plentiful that they become laughable.

Bits and pieces of Poseidon are relatively suspenseful, but the whole affair is rather dreary.

And some people might view the movie as morbidly redundant, too: After Katrina and 9/11 and the Tsunami and the wildfires and other natural and manmade disasters, where’s the joy in experiencing, even vicariously, unending terror, death and anxiety?

Even more to the point, who wants to spend so much time with characters as poorly developed and unlikable these?

It's not the sort of thing that anyone needs to see twice, or, really, even once.