Its clear now that Director Wolfgang Petersen has been losing his touch. This is a man that brought us the classic film Das Boot and other enjoyable films such as In The Line of Fire and Air Force One. With Troy it could be seen that this talented director has begun to lose his sense of style. It seems that in these modern days, action is in demand and these acclaimed directors are luring themselves in. Without a doubt there are still directors out there that continue to make marvelous films, but some seem to be declining with each film they make.
Poseidon is based 1972's Poseidon Adventure. Remake or not, 2006's Poseidon is inferior to the Poseidon Adventure. One of the main problems with Poseidon is that its too short. Running at approximately ninety eight minutes in length, there is not room for much in this film. Ten minutes into this film the ship flips over and everyone is desperate to escape and to survive. A huge flaw that Poseidon forgets is a key element in a film and that is called character development.
With Poseidon the viewers receive a ten to fifteen minute character development which is not merely enough. This happens because, of course its summer and audiences want to be entertained and watch big budget action extravaganzas. Well, Poseidon has action, plenty of it. It just isn't an extravaganza, not near it, at all. Explosions, deaths and stunts are all witnessed in this film. Its an action film with no brains behind it in how to involve a viewer. Its flawed in many ways, not giving each different character their own personality is one of them.
In Poseidon, you will not find yourself liking one character more than the other because all of them very much the same and have the same things in mind. When a film has a simple story like this one it needs to have different characters with different ways of survival. Its not that interesting when everyone is cooperating and only one person seems scared. In some terms this is unrealistic when in fact many would be in complete fear. The screenplay for this film fails miserably in this section of Poseidon and it was written by Mark Protosevich who also brought us the screenplay for The Cell.
Protosevich has for the most part predictable situations occurring here and only but one surprising moment. In the case of spoilers I will not mention the surprising moment, but its a death of one of the characters. Everything else seems to go in order and nothing out of the ordinary happens. The depth of character truly puts everything else in a state of paralysis and makes it hard to continue advancing. For example, Emmy Rossum who plays Jennifer Ramsey and Mike Vogel who plays Christian are engaged to get married, but the reality of it is, who cares? Honestly.
It all happens so quickly in Poseidon, it doesn't stop for one second and we will not care about the characters. One must at least become a bit emotionally involved with a film that is driven by deaths and survival, but Poseidon throws that all away. There are solid actors in Poseidon, Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss. They all deliver decent performances, but thats not to say that it was not expected because it was. They have nothing to work with though and the dialogue is typical in a film like this.
The dialogue only ranges from how to find another escape route to which one of them should risk their lives and open a door. Poseidon is what you would consider a decent rental if you want to enjoy a night of mindless fun. This film won't lose your interest, so yes it is entertaining, but it lacks any sense of depth and has no emotional core. Petersen brings us some good special effects, but there are no nail biting moments. The expression of a viewer is closer to a straight face than their jaw lowered down a few inches. Poseidon is a step down for Petersen and its hard to imagine how he can go from Das Boot to Poseidon, something has happened.
