Other Titles • Poseidon (2006) • The Poseidon Adventure
Synopses for Poseidon (2006)
1.
It’s New Year’s Eve and festivities have begun aboard the luxury cruise ship Poseidon, at sea in the North Atlantic.
One of the finest vessels of its kind, Poseidon stands more than 20 stories tall, boasts 800 staterooms and 13 passenger decks.
Tonight, many of the ship’s guests have gathered to greet the new year in style in the magnificent Main Ballroom. They raise champagne glasses as Captain Bradford (ANDRE BRAUGHER) delivers a holiday toast and the band (led by STACY FERGUSON, aka FERGIE of the BLACK EYED PEAS) rolls into a version of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Meanwhile, on the bridge, the Chief Officer senses that something is wrong.
Scanning the horizon, he sees it – a rogue wave; a wall of water over 150 feet high, bearing down on them. He tries to steer the ship away from maximum impact but it’s too late. The wave strikes with colossal force, pitching the ship heavily to port before rolling it completely upside down. Passengers and crew are thrown into free fall, crushed by debris or dragged into the sea as water bursts in through shattered windows. Supports collapse, broken gas lines ignite flash fires and lights fail, leaving vast sections of the ship in darkness and chaos. In its aftermath, a few hundred survivors are left to huddle in the still-intact Main Ballroom, now resting below the waterline. They should stay together, the captain maintains, and wait here for rescue.
One man, professional gambler Dylan Johns (JOSH LUCAS), prefers to test the odds alone. Ignoring orders, he prepares to exit the Ballroom and find his own way to safety, but is collared by nine-year-old Conor (JIMMY BENNETT), who asks that Dylan take him and his mother Maggie (JACINDA BARRETT) along. Fast behind them is Robert Ramsey (KURT RUSSELL), anxious to search for his daughter Jennifer (EMMY ROSSUM) and her fiancé Christian (MIKE VOGEL). Only an hour earlier this young couple had found it impossible to tell him they were engaged and now face much graver challenges.
Wary of alliances, Dylan reluctantly leads the small band of survivors upward through the bowels of the ship. Those who choose to join them rather than wait below include a shy stowaway (MIA MAESTRO), a suicidal man (RICHARD DREYFUSS) who re-discovers his will to live and a young waiter with knowledge of the ship’s layout (FREDDY RODRIGUEZ). Determined to fight their way to the surface, they must forge a path together through layers of wreckage as the ship continues to sink. Bonds form quickly in this journey of vertical climbs, dead ends and sheer drops. And trust proves vital.
(19 votes)
2.
When a rogue wave capsizes a luxury cruise ship in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, a small group of survivors find themselves unlikely allies in a battle for their lives. As the unstable vessel rapidly floods with water, they face unimaginable odds and life-altering decisions in their desperate fight to the surface.
When a rogue wave capsizes a luxury cruise ship in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, a small group of survivors find themselves unlikely allies in a battle for their lives. Preferring to test the odds alone, career gambler John Dylan (Josh Lucas) ignores captain's orders (Andre Braugher) to wait below for possible rescue and sets out to find his own way to safety. What begins as a solo mission soon draws others as Dylan is followed by a desperate father (Kurt Russell) searching for his daughter (Emmy Rossum) and her fiancé (Mike Vogel), a young couple who hours before couldn't summon the courage to tell him they were engaged and now face much graver challenges. Along the way they are joined by a single mother (Jacinda Barrett) and her wise-beyond-his-years son (Jimmy Bennett), an anxious stowaway (Mia Maestro) and a despondent fellow passenger (Richard Dreyfuss) who boarded the ship not sure he wanted to live but now knows he doesn't want to die. Determined to fight their way to the surface, the group sets off through the disorienting maze of twisted steel in the upside-down wreckage. As the unstable vessel rapidly fills with water each must draw on skills and strengths they didn't even know they possessed, fighting against time for their own survival and for each other.
The 1972 disaster hit The Poseidon Adventure was ripe for a big-budget CGI remake, and who better to helm it than thriller expert Wolfgang Petersen, director of Das Boot and The Perfect Storm? It hardly matters that a TV movie remake (also based on Paul Gallico's original 1969 source novel) was made less than a year before, because Petersen's version is far more spectacular, with shocking digital effects, massive sets, amazing stunt-work and enough fire and water to fill five movies with challenging worst-case scenarios. Once again, the plot concerns the capsizing (by a massive "rogue wave") of a state-of-the-art luxury liner, and the struggle of a small group of survivors (including Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum, and Richard Dreyfuss) to climb upwards, to the ship's hull, in their treacherous quest for a safe exit. Unfortunately, most of these characters are two-dimensional and under-developed (especially when compared to the 1972 film's all-star cast), and the unimaginative screenplay by Mark Protosevich (reportedly worked on by several uncredited writers) subjects them to a rote series of obstacles that grow increasingly routine and repetitious, not to mention contrived and illogical. Again, it hardly matters, because Petersen's handling of non-stop action is so slick and professional that Poseidon gets by on sheer adrenaline. The capsizing scenes are nothing less than awesome, with some effects so real (and so horrifying) that younger and more sensitive viewers may need to look away. And while it lacks the engaging humanity of the 1972 version, Poseidon is certainly never boring. Faint praise, perhaps, but you'll get your popcorn's worth of mindless entertainment. --Jeff Shannon
(15 votes)
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