Poseidon

So Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon (2006) is pretty average all the way around. Beautifully technically, but this script feels like a total checklist of every cliche of a disaster epic. Multiethnic cast, check. All the ethnics dying early on, check. Annoying kid actor who can't act, check. Random kid actor disappearing from the group at inopportune times, check. Gay guy dying, no check.

Odd, given everything else.

Anyway, this script hinders what should be an enjoyable disaster movie, since none of the relationships are developed or layered. Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) and Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell) help stranded passengers of a sinking cruiseship try to escape to the bottom (now top) of the sinking ship. However, while Dylan seems to display growing affection for a woman and her son, and while Robert must cope with a daughter who is slightly estranged and newly engaged, neither relationship really takes off emotionally, but instead just seems placed there, as though the placement alone is meant to generate our sympathies. This error in script judgment really dooms a technically great film.

The film does garner sympathy when Russell sacrifices himself , so it does something right there, but by then it's too little, too late. While I don't profess Petersen's The Perfect Storm (2000) to be great or anything, I'll watch the end whenever it's on TV, and that film possesses an integrity of life that this film unfortunately never captures. I truly wish Petersen could tap into the zeitgeist like he did with Das Boot (1981) again. Sigh.

Poseidon: 5/10