Poseidon DVD > Reviews > Water, Water Everywhere and not a drop to drink!

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Outstanding
Soundtrack	Good

Advantages:	Great action scenes
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have to say, I was quite excited about watching this. I had read the reviews written in the early days after it's release and they were average, not slating it but not working it up either so I was not expecting a brilliant experience. It was more a feeling of familiarity, having watched the original version from 1972 repeatedly as I was growing up; this version (2006) felt like it would be an old friend.

For anyone who maybe doesn't know the tale of Poseidon or The Poseidon Adventure, from 1972, the premise of the story is on New Year's Eve a huge tidal wave knocks over a massive cruise ship and it rolls right round so it is upside down on a tilt in the middle of the ocean. Hundreds lose their lives immediately with the flooding and fires that encompass most of the ship but a large group of revellers on two different floors of the ship survive…but for how long?

For me this really gripped me much more than the original version did. Maybe it had something to do with my age and I couldn't really comprehend the danger these people were in when I was a young girl watching it. As an adult however, and with the safety of a child being introduced I found myself at times quite knotty in the stomach at the scenes I was watching. The special effects were actually very very good and to me it did look extremely real when partygoers were being flung around like rag dolls as the water came crashing through the windows.

For instance, right at the beginning, well after the ship turns over anyway, a young boy who becomes central to the plot is found perched upon a really high crevice. He has to jump into a curtain held out by rescuers underneath, and the drop is a long one! His poor mum is standing at the bottom cringing that her son will make it and the rescuers will catch him. It's awful, in a great kind of way. My stomach clenches along with my fists as he drops. But while I am on the subject of this particular young boy I have to say that Jimmy Bennett plays the part exceptionally well. For a ten-year-old boy to pull off the scenes he is involved with, I personally feel he has some great potential. There are a lot of swimming scenes (obviously) and he pulls off the breath gasping, panicky look with apparent ease.

Poseidon does also include one of my favourite actors, Kurt Russell. Kurt plays the part of Robert Ramsey, a father to the newly engaged Jennifer and being an ex-fire-fighter is obviously up for the job pretty well. Kurt Russell is getting on a bit now and he doesn't quite come across as the action hero as well as he used to, only to be expected of course. And in my opinion the director has not asked too much of him. The scenes that require him to be strong and macho are not overdone and looking at his physique now the scenes he did fitted well with the role. Most of the super action stuff was left to Josh Lucas who played Dylan James.

Dylan was aboard the ship making himself some money off the backs of his shipmate's good spirits or low spirits for that matter, about New Years Eve. Poker chips were making their way easily into his pocket and he was coining it in. After the wave though he decides he will not drown on this ship and is the first to get things going in planning the escape. Intending to go alone he is somewhat reluctant when the main group of the film decide they are coming along for the ride, but caves in when the little boy pleads with him. Josh Lucas has a great role. He is the main lead role I would say, even in front of Kurt Russell as far as airtime and the role his character takes. He has the leadership qualities and people are looking to him to get them out. He rises to the challenge, if somewhat grudgingly at first, but gets better at his personal skills as he goes along.

The other surprise actor was Richard Dreyfuss. I knew he was in it but he looked so different. Just age I guess but when you haven't seen an actor for a while it sometimes takes you aback how altered they can become. He gets a tough part to play actually as he is about to commit suicide when he sees the wave coming. Funny how when you're faced with a potentially life threatening event out of your control, suicide seems to leave the mind. Anyway, he joins the survivor's gang and faces a very tough decision in the lift scene. I will not divulge further as it is a pretty good part to the story, and will make you cringe in horror at what he has to do.

There were two scenes that pretty much freaked me out completely. The worst of these was when the group's only way forward on their quest for freedom through the propellers led them to an air conditioning shaft. Water was coming at them from behind and this was the only way forward. Of course they had a claustrophobic woman in their midst to convey to the viewer what it must be like but I had no trouble imagining. It was akin to the feeling I got when watching The Descent, and the girls were crawling through those tiny cave tunnels. I felt physically sick. I am not normally a claustrophobic kind of person in the physical sense. I have no problem with lifts and so on but watching this type of thing on the TV really gets to me. Half a dozen people clambering into a shaft only wide enough for one person at a time to crawl into made me feel very queasy. The fact that water was coming rapidly from behind them, slowly filling the shaft and the grid at the top was bolted to the floor, effectively locking them in the shaft, with no way back and no way forward. Argh! I have watched the film twice now and it still makes me feel bad.

The other scene I mentioned was where they have had to flood a chamber they are standing in, in the hope that a pressure fan will open with the pressure of the water, taking them onto the next chamber and possible freedom. You see their faces under water as they wait for the fan to open. It seems like forever and the young boy is treading water holding onto his mum and his breath. Their eyes are wide and wild as they frantically wait for the opening and their next breath of air. I found this to be a brilliant piece of filming.

I didn't realise until I began this review that the director, Wolfgang Petersen, actually directed some of my favourite films - Air Force One and In the Line of Fire being among them. I think he has done a great job with this re-make. There are parts of the old version that I would have liked to be included but the 2006 version of this film certainly went above my expectations and I enjoyed every minute of it.