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Poseidon

Fun with a streamlined cast
By TOM MEEK  |  February 20, 2007
2.5 2.5 Stars

Wolfgang Petersen gets his feet wet again (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm) with this remake of the 1972 disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure. Back then, the capsized ocean liner (the victim of a rogue tidal wave) was seen as a metaphor for society turned upside down. Nixon was in the White House; now there’s Bush. The original boasted five Oscar winners (Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, and Ernest Borgnine among them) and some plump waistlines (Borgnine and Winters); the remake offers a leaner, fitter survival party led by Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell, with less Oscar pedigree, though Richard Dreyfuss is in the mix. The upgrades in FX go a long way; what’s missing is the character and the camp (bad dialogue and cheesy melodrama) that buoyed the original. It’s more steerage than first-class, but still fun. Next up, The Towering Inferno 2008?
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