May 31, 2006
Survival of the wettest, that’s Poseidon, - a taut, pared-down thriller which chucks a committed cast into the nooks and crannies of a passenger liner up-ended by a rogue tidal wave.
On New Year’s Eve, the good ship Poseidon turns turtle, sending crew and customers crashing through an upside-down death trap. Most survivors await rescue in the ballsed-up ballroom, but a handful of plucky Darwinians know the only way is up – and out through the bottom of the boat. Protective dad, ex-fire-fighter and political bigshot (Kurt Russell) wants to get his newly-engaged daughter to safety, with her fiancé in tow; but it’s an amoral card-sharp (Josh Lucas) who’s got the guts to lead the rag-bag team upwards. A single mum and son, a stowaway girl, and an ageing homosexual architect (Richard Dreyfuss) form the rest of the buoys and girls. Cue all sorts of perils and pitfalls in lift-shafts, flaming corridors and underwater tunnels. And all the time, the water’s coming to get them.
Director Wolfgang Petersen is to boats what Fred Dibnah is to steam engines – he just loves those pipes and pressure gauges, oil and metal. Poseidon creates a credibly claustrophobic topsy-turvy world, CGI mingling with convincing sets, occasionally littered with Dawn of the Dead-style corpses and ghoulish sights. But none too gory - it’s fear, not revulsion, that keeps this ticking. That and the hard-edged agony of choice – as when a leg-clinging good-guy is kicked off and falls to his doom. Full marks to Petersen though for not using a starry cast. Kurt Russell is always watchable but not that famous, so too Dreyfuss. But it’s Josh Lucas who steals the show, with a screen-burning turn as the selfish chancer turned action hero: notable before only for flying-flick Stealth, this one puts him on the map. It even put him in hospital, briefly, following a fall-gone-wrong.
1972’s classic The Poseidon Adventure had bigger names and a longer running-time. But Poseidon goes for the jugular, focusing on primal predicaments, not character-development. The chatty bits are few and lightly done. But we still have a Shelley Winters moment as one of the plucky bunch gets stuck in a shaft, blocking in the others. And in this postmodern age, Poseidon relegates religion – so Gene Hackman’s hero vicar from the earlier film gets shrunk into a crucifix-screwdriver, which brings a salvation of sorts.
Petersen is no stranger to waterborne movies. Cutting his teeth on the claustrophobic U-boat drama Das Boot, he gave George Clooney a soaking in The Perfect Storm. And Poseidon shows his deftness of touch in conveying the suffocating confines of each situation. He’s less assured with special effects – as the sea-shots in Troy amply proved – but his nifty editing here, keeping things at a lick, wisely stops us from noticing.
It’s not a classic, but Poseidon gets you to grip your popcorn and your loved one and makes you feel glad to be alive. At a refreshingly short 98 minutes, it’s lean, mean and efficient. Darwin would have approved.
On New Year’s Eve, the good ship Poseidon turns turtle, sending crew and customers crashing through an upside-down death trap. Most survivors await rescue in the ballsed-up ballroom, but a handful of plucky Darwinians know the only way is up – and out through the bottom of the boat. Protective dad, ex-fire-fighter and political bigshot (Kurt Russell) wants to get his newly-engaged daughter to safety, with her fiancé in tow; but it’s an amoral card-sharp (Josh Lucas) who’s got the guts to lead the rag-bag team upwards. A single mum and son, a stowaway girl, and an ageing homosexual architect (Richard Dreyfuss) form the rest of the buoys and girls. Cue all sorts of perils and pitfalls in lift-shafts, flaming corridors and underwater tunnels. And all the time, the water’s coming to get them.
Director Wolfgang Petersen is to boats what Fred Dibnah is to steam engines – he just loves those pipes and pressure gauges, oil and metal. Poseidon creates a credibly claustrophobic topsy-turvy world, CGI mingling with convincing sets, occasionally littered with Dawn of the Dead-style corpses and ghoulish sights. But none too gory - it’s fear, not revulsion, that keeps this ticking. That and the hard-edged agony of choice – as when a leg-clinging good-guy is kicked off and falls to his doom. Full marks to Petersen though for not using a starry cast. Kurt Russell is always watchable but not that famous, so too Dreyfuss. But it’s Josh Lucas who steals the show, with a screen-burning turn as the selfish chancer turned action hero: notable before only for flying-flick Stealth, this one puts him on the map. It even put him in hospital, briefly, following a fall-gone-wrong.
1972’s classic The Poseidon Adventure had bigger names and a longer running-time. But Poseidon goes for the jugular, focusing on primal predicaments, not character-development. The chatty bits are few and lightly done. But we still have a Shelley Winters moment as one of the plucky bunch gets stuck in a shaft, blocking in the others. And in this postmodern age, Poseidon relegates religion – so Gene Hackman’s hero vicar from the earlier film gets shrunk into a crucifix-screwdriver, which brings a salvation of sorts.
Petersen is no stranger to waterborne movies. Cutting his teeth on the claustrophobic U-boat drama Das Boot, he gave George Clooney a soaking in The Perfect Storm. And Poseidon shows his deftness of touch in conveying the suffocating confines of each situation. He’s less assured with special effects – as the sea-shots in Troy amply proved – but his nifty editing here, keeping things at a lick, wisely stops us from noticing.
It’s not a classic, but Poseidon gets you to grip your popcorn and your loved one and makes you feel glad to be alive. At a refreshingly short 98 minutes, it’s lean, mean and efficient. Darwin would have approved.