For all intents and purposes the great Irwin Allen should have been known as the 'Master of Disaster.' Over his long and varied career, he produced some of the most famous disaster movies including, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Swarm as well as such TV fare as the unashamedly titled Fire!, Flood! and Cave-In! Allen was also responsible for the great adventure flick, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which spawned a popular series of the same name. But it was with the great disaster films that his name was most synonymous. Of course, it didn’t hurt his career that the 1970's could have been called the decade of the disaster movie. Along with his films, I would often find myself huddled in a darkened theatre ready to catch any and every disaster film that came out. I was there at the Northgate theatre in El Paso on opening day of Earthquake, not just to see the movie, but also to check out new SENSURROUND experience.

All the advertising said the theatre would shake just like you were in a real earthquake. In actuality, they simply used a couple of heavy bass speakers to vibrate the seats every time the quake hit in the movie. By today's standards it was pretty pedestrian, but let me tell you back in the 70's audiences (including me) were blown away. Unfortunately the SENSURROUND experience only lasted for two more movies (Rollercoaster & Midway) then pretty much disappeared.

What reminded me of those old experiences were the recent DVD releases of Allen's The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, and this week's release of director Wolfgang Peterson's big budget remake of the former, Poseidon. The original 1972 version was a star-studded extravaganza. The story of a luxury liner tipped over by a giant tidal wave was made all the more interesting by casting such familiar faces as Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowell, Shelley Winters and Red Buttons (and if you don’t know any of those names, you don’t deserve to see any movies… ever…). Then there was the matter of the sets. Special effects aside, the sets that were built for this massive production were incredible. Never during a single moment of the movie did you not believe you were following the cast through an upside down jungle of hallways, rooms, and engineering compartments as they made their way to the top… er… bottom of the ship. As a matter of fact, the sets and effects were impressive enough for the film to win an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual effects.

For Poseidon, Peterson went the same route though he didn't have quite as large a cast of familiar faces. He pulled together Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Andre Braugher and Kevin Dillon, and mixed them with lesser-knowns like Jacinda Barrett, Emmy Rossum and Mia Maestro. Together they face the same catastrophe that befell the cruise ship in the original film as it plays out like a survivalist's version of 'and then there were none.' As for the effects in the film, I will say that most of the sets rival what Allen was able to do over 30 years ago, BUT there are some CGI shots that were really, really bad. The problem with CGI is that there are so few effect studios that really know how to blend it with real life. When it stands out at all, it really takes the viewer out of the movie.

This new version is essentially the same story, told with more expensive special effects. I'm not really sure why Peterson opted to create a remake, considering the original was so well-received. He didn’t really change much, and while it serves up quite a rollercoaster of a ride, I have to say the characters aren’t nearly as interesting as in the original. Poseidon really turned into a case of style over substance (which I've been seeing a lot in movies recently), where the effects really drove the film. This isn’t to say it’s a bad film as it does a good job of entertaining, but it could have been so much more if the time was taken to craft the characters into some that you cheer on when they win or cry when they die.

Now, I've read a handful of articles that complain that "Poseidon" is an extremely racist film in that all of the white characters seem to be the ones who keep winning. They claim there is a message in the film that says if you are a minority, you aren’t going to make it. This of course is written by out of work hacks who have nothing better to do than to 'read between the lines' of every movie they see and every book they read in order to try and get a little attention. These are the same guys who were ticked off that the Evil Arab Terrorists in "True Lies" were portrayed as… well… Evil Arab Terrorists. I imagine if you look back into their early journals you'll see where they scrawled that they took offense to Arnold Ziffel being referred to as a pig since he was portrayed by… well… uhhh… a pig.

So getting back to the new DVD release of Poseidon, consumers have the choice of buying a Full Screen single disc, a Widescreen single disc, or a Widescreen 2-disc set of the movie. I had the opportunity to check out the 2-disc set, which includes a few extra special features that are not on the single disc release. What you will get on either version is a 20 minute documentary on the making of the film, complete with cast interviews and a look at ILM's work on the effects. If you choose to grab the 2-disc set, you'll also get a 10 minute featurette on the art department's work on the sets, 12 minutes of a production assistant's video diary of the shoot, and a History Channel Documentary about the phenomenon of rogue waves.

While I'm a bigger fan of the original film, Peterson's Poseidon is not without merit. Where it lacks in character development or involvement, it more than makes up for with its special effects. There's no question that there are scenes that will have you holding your breath right along with the actors, you just won’t find yourself really caring if they start breathing again.

Directed by: Wolfgang Peterson
Starring: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas. Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett, Emmy Rossum
Extras: "Poseidon: A Ship on a Soundstage" documentary on the complexities of making a modern adventure movie, "A Shipmate’s Diary" - a film school intern’s experiences on the set, "Poseidon: Upside Down" featurette on the set design, Rogue Waves documentary - originally made for The History Channel, Theatrical trailer
Specifications: Widescreen (2.35:1), Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Warner Brothers
Release Date: 8/22/2006
Region 1
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (For Intense Prolonged Sequences of Disaster and Peril)
Website

We'll give Poseidon a B-.