IDIOT REVIEWS

-- movie reviews from an idiot teenager --

DIRECTOR: Wolfgang Peterson

CAST: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum, Mike Vogal, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett, Mia Maestro, Jimmy Bennett, Freddy Rodriguez, Kevin Dillon Andre Braugher

IMDB RATING: 5.6/10

BUDGET: $160 million

BOX OFFICE: $60 million US, $170 worldwide.  Since the studio only takes about 55% of the gross, and the budget doesn't include marketing and distrobution costs, the studio is probably about $100 million in the hole.  Not quite a bomb the size of last year's The Island and Stealth, but this is yet another signal to studios that they're trying to release a few too many blockbusters at once.

Poseidon

2006

* * 1/2

            A luxury cruise ship is hit by a massive rogue wave and flipped upside-down.  Although the captain urges everyone to stay in the apparently safe ballroom, a small group (Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum, Mike Vogal, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett, Mia Maestro, Jimmy Bennett, Freddy Rodriguez, Kevin Dillon) attempt to get out, which will be one heck of an adventure? 

            You know, as talented and skilled a director as Wolfgang Peterson is, you'd think his second-best film would be better than In the Line of Fire.  Nothing against that film, which is an exciting and satisfying thriller, but Peterson should be making great films.  Instead, pretty much everything since 1981 has been a series of could-be great films that instead are only pretty good.

            This disaster film is, at times, though, an exceptional film.  Peterson creates some incredible suspense scenes and an adequate sense of spectacle.  The actors are all professionals and do their jobs well.  Russell, Lucas, and Rossum are especially strong. (although, as a side note, Dillon isn't nearly as good at playing sleazebags as his brother Matt; he's effective, but just not quite as good)  The movie is entertaining and intense, a perfectly decent summer flick.

            However, it's about as forgettable as movies get.  The very moment the end credits started, I had almost forgotten it.  Disaster films need to be memorable, even when they aren't all that great.  Except for occassional clips on TV, I haven't watched Titanic since its theatrical release nine years ago (has it really been that long), but I still remember the last hour vividly.  The massive explosion at the end of Dante's Peak is still haunting and exhilerating in my memories.  The climb up the elevator shaft and the climax in The Towering Inferno still hang around up there in my head.  And yet, as well done as the action, special effects, and stunts are in the film, they aren't anything to take home.  Part of the problem is the ending, which is rushed and kind of lame.  But the drama of the film almost never hits.

            Nontheless, it is an exciting and enjoyable film.  It just never manages to be any more than adequate.