Poseidon

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Cast: Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett, Mia Maestro, Emmy Rossum, Mike Vogel, Jimmy Bennett

6.5/10

Disaster-based films are invariably about the fallibility of technology, redemption of usually self-absorbed humans through unusual acts of selflessness in a life-threatening situation and survival skills that no ‘how-to’ book can teach. Wolfgang Petersen’s Poseidon does not offer anything beyond these established parameters of the Hollywood disaster genre, but still manages to keep the viewer engrossed in yet another story of a luxury ocean liner bowing to nature’s fury.

Inspired by the 1972 classic, The Poseidon Adventure, but by no means a remake, Petersen’s film has a set of stock characters who find themselves yoked together by a common desire to survive after their ship is felled by a rogue wave. It doesn’t take long for one to realise that each of the characters has been represented in some way in a disaster saga before, be it the hardened gambler who discovers in adversity that he has a heart, too, the hero-turned-fall guy who sees in the crisis an opportunity to redeem himself, or the kid who always finds new ways to make his mother worry. The excitement is in figuring out who among them will be alive when the credits roll.

Thankfully, Petersen does not put in sub-plots to make the film more interesting than it can be. The most obvious temptation would have been to make a pair of lovers the central characters of the film, a la Jack and Rose in Titanic, but the element of romance in Poseidon is restricted to an engaged couple. One would expect special effects to be the USP of such a film and Petersen does not disappoint on this score. Scenes of a monstrous wave crashing into the luxury liner against the backdrop of a full moon and the ship turning upside down are truly spectacular. If you like stories of great escapes told the conventional Hollywood way, chances are you will like Poseidon, too.

Ritu Parna Dutta