Poseidon (2006)
Poseidon continues the tradition of great disaster movies. Start with a stellar cast, separate one small group (typically around ten people) off from the main group, and kill about half of the small group off in varied suspenseful ways as they make their escape. Sometimes not killing someone but have them survive briefly just to keep people guessing. Ensure that even some of the big-name actor star’s characters die too, since disaster movies can’t have sequels. And then rescue the remaining members of the small group in a spectacular way.
Having done all this, and having done it with great special effects, Poseidon should have been an all-time great disaster movie. This should have sparked resurgence in the great escape disaster genre. But it didn't. Why? Because the movie was about twenty minutes too short. Even in an edge-of-your-seat keep them guessing drama; you still need to set the back-story first. At no time did we learn anything about the boat except for its name, and we only learned one-sentence descriptions for each of the main characters throughout the movie, single-mom, alcoholic gambler, and rebellious teens in love, etcetera. What should have happened was we should have boarded the boat with the characters, got the welcome to out boat, the largest vessel of its kind speech, got the introduction tour; here’s the gallery, the ball room, etcetera. Instead the movie starts with everyone already on board some big boat sailing somewhere, and the boat tour is mentioned past tense but never flash backed to.
posted by A. Ryan Robbins @ 21:30
