Splashy Flick

It opened. Shelley’s body is barely cold...and here it is.

Poseidon.

I wonder why they did it. Is it really just remakes from now until the end of time?

The Mann’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard had its first screening tonight at 10. So we went. It wasn’t an event. The place was about 10% filled.

I mean, the movie is awful. If you are talking about script.

And the acting is just, whatever.

But the design of it. The fear of it. The water always coming at them. The suspense. The filming. The effects.
Honestly, it’s quite a good ride and we were entertained, with adrenalin rushing through our arteries almost the entire time.

But the poor waterlogged actors. The unknowns, well, they had to do it. But you get the sense that the known ones didn’t have much else going on. Kevin Dillon played the bad boy. He doesn’t last long. Kurt Russell is the big hero. His character was once the mayor of New York---a cheesy nod to Giuliani in a crisis. Richard Dreyfuss got an “And” credit at the beginning of the movie. He plays the old guy, but in this movie, he’s gay and sports a diamond stud earring. It’s just ludicrous, but he soldiers through it. I imagine he must have insisted when he agreed to do this role, “I’ll be in the Poseidon remake only if I don’t have to die in it.”

Hispanic actors are done away with quite harshly. The absolute survival aspect is what this movie is all about. And it’s rough and it’s hard and the pretty people (but not too pretty) that survive, well, they’re pretty.

I somehow appreciated the lack of character. It helped to point up the base survival instinct of human beings. So Das Boot.

The original Poseidon Adventure was about thirty times better. I mean, the cast alone. Come on. Shelley who, “In the water was a very skinny lady.” And the amazing Stella Stevens and Ernest Borgnine. And Gene Hackman, no less. Jack Albertson as the hang-dog Manny. And frigging Red Buttons. There just HAD to be a morning after.

I’d say, rent The Poseidon Adventure and then go see Poseidon and trace the plot connections. This remake is somehow scarier, what with its 9/11 disaster overtones (and a crucifix that saves the day). But the original movie, of course, is the one.