Poseidon (Widescreen Edition)

The first part of this movie is about watching people die in horrible ways: drowning, falling, burning, crush injury death, electrocution, etc. The next part is about people trying to escape in impossible circumstances. Many corpses found along the way. Will they make it or won’t they? That’s really the point of the movie after satiating an audience need for suffering and death.The original Poseidon Adventure had a whole philosophical aspect to it. This movie wouldn’t know philosophy from a hole in the ground.Performances are decent. Nothing stands out. It’s a serviceable movie. It isn’t good but it has good intentions.

Nice remake of the original.

Great

When I first heard back in early 2004 that Wolfgang Petersen was planning a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" I was stoked. The 1972 film holds a special place on my personal favorites list because it was the very first film my parents took me to see (at the local drive-in, no less).The Irwin Allen classic has become a guilty pleasure for loyal fans. Over the last several years many of those fans (myself included) have thought that, in the right hands, "The Poseidon Adventure" would benefit from a remake.And in Mr. Petersen the producers found the perfect filmmaker. How could the brilliant, visionary director of the claustrophobic classic "Das Boot" and the brilliant "The Perfect Storm" go wrong? Combine the best elements of those two films with the classic tour-de-force survival story originally told by Paul Gallico in his 1969 novel and a new movie could become a critical and box office success.So with much anticipation I went to see "Poseidon." The long awaited remake is a tremendous spectacle that will keep you on the edge of your seat for almost the entire length of the movie.Petersen begins the film with one of the most stunning opening shots in recent film history: A 3-minute wrap-around of the grand luxury liner as she sails the Atlantic. What makes this scene so amazing is the fact that the ship doesn't really exist. The Poseidon is completely computer generated, yet when you see her up on that screen (accompanied by Klaus Badelt's excellent score) you can only be in awe. She is majestic and stately and puts a certain James Cameron boat to shame.We are then introduced to the main characters at a quick clip. Mark Protosevich's screenplay doesn't draw them very well, but I'll speak to that in a moment. Because just as I was starting to let the lack of characterization bother me, the mighty Greek God of the Sea lashes out at our New Years revelers and spins their world upside down in a heart-pounding capsize sequence that bests the original's by a mile.From there it's non-stop, edge-of-your-seat, hair-raising action as our rag tag group of survivors fight their way up the dying ship to find an escape, battling water and obstacles and more water along the way. Petersen's brilliant direction on the escape sequences will have you climbing the walls.As with most well done disaster movies it's the action sequences and special effects that save "Poseidon." I recommend the movie highly and think that on my list of "popcorn flicks" this will join the original near the top. That is thanks in large part to Petersen, his computer and design crews, and a cast that did the best they could with the script they got.And it is that script where I find my sole disappointment. Why Warner Bros moved ahead with such a lackluster screenplay puzzles me. This had the chance to be a classic sea tale. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't expecting "Moby Dick," but Paul Gallico's "The Poseidon Adventure" is a superb story of survival at sea. It is deep in character study; dark and psychological and leaves the reader breathless.Unfortunately none of that transferred over in the 1972 film. When I read that Wolfgang Petersen would be at the helm of this new version I had high hopes that the dramatic human stories told in the Gallico novel would finally be told on the big screen. But it doesn't happen.In his review of this film Roger Ebert opined that he felt Petersen's heart wasn't in it. I don't think that was it. To me it almost seems like Warner Bros wanted "Poseidon" in the can sooner rather than later and were willing to sacrifice a strong story in order to get the film on screens by May 12, 2006. As a result the film is awkwardly edited at times - as if there had been a script there, but that it was jettisoned and then a hasty editing job done to plug the holes. It makes me wonder whether they purposefully threw away a potentially triumphant story for yet another piece of popcorn fluff.At this point it doesn't really matter, because the film is popcorn fluff. Mind you, it is well done, exciting, and thrilling popcorn fluff and I highly suggest you head give it a look. But, I just can't help but wonder "what if?" I'm afraid we'll never know, because it is highly doubtful that this story will be told again.

As a 10 year old, watching the original version of 'Poseidon Adventure' was at the time, an adventure. Up until that time, special effects were rather routine and sometimes unbelievable. Irwin Allen's masterful work made what could have been a trite film into a piece of art.After viewing the film the first time, the audience exploded in applause, as during the film's running time, each viewer was caught up in each of the character's life, struggle, and more often than not, their demise. With the special effects, and superb set designs, i also joined them, as i witnessed one of the best films i have ever seen. At age 10, i guess i saw enough 'Creature Feature' and what TV had to offer in order to make such a comparison.Since then, i have seen the original about 20 times, and each time, i do see, hear, and read between the lines more than what i saw during the previous viewing.Sometimes it does take more than one viewing to understand not only what the actors do on-screen, but what the director wanted you to see, or think, then you make your own conclusion.Now, on to the remake.I am one to not like remakes. At times, there are needs to remake an original film due to artistic mistakes, to update in order to include more gore, violence, bad language, etc. These elements sometimes hinders the mood of the original film. Take for instance 'House On Haunted Hill', '13 Ghosts', House Of Wax'. These films not only were updated, but were changed to a point where it bore almost nothing to the original, except it's core story, otherwise they played for more of the elements that made them repulsive.In the remake of 'The Poseidon Adventure', it did need an updating, mainly for the progress in the use of special effects, which were handled superbly. It took me awhile, like the previous critic listed here to get the nerve to see the remake. I was also kicking myself for not seeing it sooner, as i was blown away by the special effects.One must remember, the original film had actors that were all famous. The remade version had a few familiar faces, but to me the rest i did not know, which to me made the film better than the original since it didn't matter to me who died, as long as the the handful of survivors made it to where they were supposed to go, to the bottom of the ship in order to be rescued. Films like these will always have unfortunate deaths in order to move the story along, as this one has, but also, one must remember, this is only a film, and films do not have to be made to win academy awards, but to entertain, which this remake does, in abundance.The characters were developed just enough to care about them to a point, but was just enough to get the rest of the situation at hand when the wave hit, and the wave sure hits, and the action does not stop thereafter. In fact, there is rather little time from opening credits to the wave to get bored waiting.I gave the remake '5 stars' for the reasoning that all involved with the film did a job well done. Some, if not many who did not see the original should see this version first, just for the sake of seeing how far special effects has progressed from previous action films. Then, see the original, and see how the effects were at an age where effects were sometimes done in the camera, and manually, without CGI.Both versions are not to miss. As for the TV version of 'The Poseidon Adventure', well, i'd have to do another review on that one, but since it wasn't a great version, i will leave it up to others who may share my feelings.

Great movie,and certainly no remake of the original one called "Poseidon adventure"!Great performance by Kurt Russell here!And the comments of disc 2 about the making of the movie are very instructive.....A true asset to anyone's movie collection to my mind!

As decribed and quite fast

Great item, fast trans, A+++++++++++

Ware ( DVD ) war vollkommen unbrauchbar !Wir haben versucht diese DVD auf 5 ( fünf ) verschiedenen DVD-Recordern und auf zwei BluRay-Playern hier im Hause abzuspielen . . . . es läuft nichts !Gut ! diese 4,37 Euro waren rausgeschmissenes Geld !!!Der Versender kann ja auch nicht in die Ware reinsehen und jeden Film Probelaufen lassen !Dem gebe ich keine Schuld !Schade !!!!!-

Film war recht flott da und lief 1.Klassigdurch,doch auch wenn die Darsteller noch so gut sind zum Originalen mit Gene Hackman kann der nicht mithalten.Es fehlt sehr viel wenn man den Originalen kennt, Drama kommt nicht richtig rüber,Spannungist auch nur Teils.Empfehlen kann man denFilm nur wer weniger an die 70er interessiert ist,dann lohnt der sich für Fans von Katastrophen/Actionfilme.