The Poseidon Adventure [Blu-ray]

The only thing I didn't really like about this movie was the lack of captioning, since I'm a little hard of hearing at most times. Had to pay a lot of attention to what the characters were saying and a lot of them talk in thick accents. But otherwise, the movie was brilliant! Sadly, this movie seemed to bomb out on the reviews--a lot of low-stars here on Amazon. Let me straighten one of the reasons out."The Navy SEAL is yelling that the ship is sinking, but the ship shows no sign of sinking at all." DUHHHHH! It's a 150,000-ton cruise ship! Even while capsized and 90 percent underwater, the mass of the ship is huge and is at least 150 feet high out of the water from the capsized keel to the waterline, so it wouldn't show the entire ship making the plunge just yet. And the Navy SEAL lieutenant was right. Anyone would know that by that time, the ship wouldn't have much time left and it showed in several shots that the bow was just a little lower in the water than before. His estimate that it would have less than 30 minutes left was right on the dot. Large ships simply wouldn't sink as fast as the movie viewers would expect them to. The Titanic itself was cut open 300 feet by an iceberg in 1912 and it stayed afloat more than 2 hours, never making such a dramatic dive into the ocean until the very end. So the way they had the ship in it's last moments was accurate enough for the budget in making this movie. I especially liked the way the ship was turning over after the bomb went off! It seems to stay level enough for a few minutes while the terrorist was taking over the ship, but the level of water entering the punctured waterline eventually loses the ship's stability to stay level and WHUMP!Some other viewers attacked the way the ship had capsized. "Ooh, we're used to the ship being turned over by a freak wave, not a terrorist attack." What the heck is that supposed to mean? In these days, it's more obvious that terrorists from the Middle East might make a sneak attack on something else than hijacked planes and kill thousands of people just to bring their point across. Cruise ships hold thousands of people and an attack on one of those would be definite in the near-future if we're not careful. Plus, the odds that a ship would capsize from an exploding bomb is more greater than being capsized by a 500-foot freak wave. You think other ships might have noticed such a thing forming from far off and send out a warning in time? Right.This movie was great, focusing on several people that end up being on the ship. The father, played by Steve Guttenburg, suffering from a troublesome marriage, and going on the cruise to be with his family. His 12-year old son with his video camera makes things surprising as well. Imagine having footage of people trying to get out of a capsized, sinking luxury ship! Then we have the producer from Australia and his wife, the reverend, the old widow, and the somewhat-paranoid agent from Homeland Security, who tracks the comings and goings on the ship, and hoping to keep a low profile aboard while racking up suspects for a terrorist attack. That cruise director guy was an annoying freak, though. He takes command of the people in the ballroom and tries to keep them from leaving, even when the water has risen 6 inches in the first hour after the capsizing. Any moron can see those windows in there won't hold back the water pressure for too long, and even when the windows collapse, you see the same moron trying to keep people from climbing up the Christmas tree to the only exit, right before it topples over and the room turns into a death crypt.I also liked the response of rescue units to the area in those scenes where they realize the ship has gone missing. Something I would've liked to see on the other version of POSEIDON. Great flick!

The point is: this essentially tells the same story as the previous versions (it just takes longer to tell it). So, does this version offer anything the other two didn't (or did) in a better (or worse) way? I'm forced to say this doesn't improve on the original (or interfere with the remake). It's a run-of-the-mill repeat with lesser stars, dragged down by the unrelenting sense that no one really cared about what they were doing. Even the score is limp, no attempt to jazz up the tension or add to the excitement. This was made for television so everything was watered down (no pun intended), even when they discover a body burned beyond recognition. Ho hum, just another body.At least it's in widescreen! Not that it made much of a difference to the plot (poorly utilizing an act of terrorism to get things rolling). I suppose you have to admire their willingness to risk scorn for using a bomb...in a bomb. It was not an element that really added to the story; there was plenty of drama already there. The addition of the doctor (C. Thomas Howell) also didn't bring anything fresh to the plot (other than a reunion with his The Hitcher costar, Rutger Hauer). But I suppose they needed to kill time, they just didn't need to be so obvious about it (as with their lame attempt to heighten the suspense through a shrill performance by Alex Kingston; added at the last moment for no good reason).This just didn't have the impact required to make it stand out. Nor did it have the star power to make up for it. (There's always a risk when you try to remake a movie as popular as the original was.)It was okay in its own way, so if you weren't expecting more than that you might just find it worth a look. I didn't mind watching it once, but I'd never watch it again.

I would encourage anyone to upgrade their older VHS or DVD movies to at least Bluray 2D quality (3D for those who have 3D grade TV’s) as the quality of the picture is 100% better then VHS tapes and nearly 50% better then DVD's. The sound quality has been improved and upgraded as well. Most Blu-ray’s have many more features that can be viewed as well which make for a much fuller movie experience too! Oh and just so you know, even if you don't own a Bluray movie you should go buy an on sale Bluray player. Why? Because a Bluray player scans the disk many more times than just a standard DVD player, that it will even make your older DVD movies look much better. That is, as long as you have a flat screen type of TV that was purchased in the last five years. Good luck and go get some!

In general, the movie held my interest. The special affects were very good. Alec Baldwin played a good DHS agent role, as did the other actors who relentlessly try and find they way to the surface of the capsized ship. It was a shame that Peter Weller wasn't given a larger role. He was killed-off relatively early in the picture. If you're a Weller fan, you probably felt a little cheated because he is a strong lead actor, he might have elevated the film to a higher level.This film can not compare to the original, in terms of overall acting and memorable film score, but it is updated to reflect the world we live in today in that terrorism, not a natural phenomon, bedeviled the helpless ocean liner. This DVD includes backstage interviews with technical personnel and actors on how the sets were created and memories of the original film shared by the actors.I'd give this version a: B

Newer interpretation of the disaster classic -I like it.

Was quite surprised at how good it was.

very enjoyable

To long and poorly acted

Poseidon made a huge comeback in 2005 with the announcement of a film (criminally underrated may I say) and a TV mini series. Sadly the TV mini series is at best middle of the road. The acting is fine and no one is out of place but the script is dire and the action sequences are few and far between. The script gives people random speeches which amount to nothing, each character is one dimension with no real progression except for Steve Guttenburg's character who has an affair and then gradually drifts back to his family. You know who will die pretty much from the start too and when they do die almost each death is made laughable by poor CGI integrated. The best thing really is that there's lot of references to the original movie which is fun enough to pick up on.So why 3 stars and not 1? The first half deserves one star for dragging - I'm all for character backgrounds if they're explored properly - here its silly snippets of silly dialogue. However the second half goes along quite well in spite of its downfalls and I'm a sucker for disaster movies. I've seen a lot worse but really the original and the remake are far more superior, as is A Night To Remember and that is a black and white 50's movie!