Poseidon

low expectation: Poseidon 
Dec. 15, 2005 - It seems inevitable that Titanic will be cemented in film history as a classic piece of cinema, as if it isn't already overrated enough. Okay, I'll admit that I haven't seen it since it opened, and I have actually appreciated it more and more without actually watching it and only thinking about it (I need to rent it to remember its worst flaws, maybe).
   One factor that I find has me appreciating James Cameron's romantic disaster pic is how awful movies are today, not even a decade later. Example: Poseidon. The new blockbuster from Wolfgang Peterson, a remake of the 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure, appears in its trailer so similar to Titanic and yet also looks so much more artificial and hokey, that it gives rise to the quality of anything put next to it.
     I think that the reason most of the boat effects look so bad is that maybe they're being animated by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed), who IMDB credits as director alongside Peterson. I can't verifiy this, but I'm not sure what else an animator is doing here. All I can tell is what I see here, and it looks like a disaster.

p.s.  Why change the name?  Should we further assume that this film isn't an adventure? Or is it to deliberately liken itself to Titanic in its campaign for that film's record-holding audience?

Con:  Remake of the 1972 disaster pic.
Con: directed by Wolfgang Peterson, who like James Cameron cannot get away from aquatic filmmaking (see my comparative chart in READ #18)
Con: written by Mark Protosevich (The Cell was good for Tarsem's visuals, not the writing).

Expectation Key


there's no possible way we will even see this

we'll eventually see this but we aren't really expecting much

anticipating the release of this one but we're sure to be left unsatisfied

such high expectation of this film only leaves room for disappointment