Poseidon is a 2006 disaster film about a cruise ship hit by a rogue wave, and it is mostly a disaster in execution. The premise is simple and effective: a ship is turned completely over by a single massive wave, and the survivors must find a way through the bow thrusters to escape. But the film’s love affair with spectacle and its indifference to character leave little else behind. This is a film where the wave is worth watching, and everything after it is not.
Trailer, via Arrow Video.
The Wave
The opening sequence is the film’s best work. A huge wave rolls in across the Atlantic, and the ship does not turn fast enough. The water breaks through the windows, the bridge officers are killed, and the ship flips upside-down in a single cut. The visual effects are convincing, and the scale of the destruction is genuinely frightening. It is a strong start, but it is also the summit of the film’s ambitions.
The Survivors
The survivors are a ragged assortment of strangers: Robert Ramsey, a former New York City Mayor and firefighter traveling with his daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Christian; Dylan Johns, a former Navy submariner turned gambler; Maggie James, her son Conor, and her stowaway friend Elena; and the ship’s Captain Michael Bradford. The film introduces them with little care for their motivations or their histories. They are there to move from one piece of debris to the next, not to be understood.
The performances suffer accordingly. Kurt Russell is the most committed presence on screen, playing Robert Ramsey with a gruff authority that keeps the middle sections of the film from collapsing entirely. Josh Lucas plays Dylan Johns as a man who has seen real danger before, and it shows. Richard Dreyfuss is the Captain, badly injured and trying to hold the survivors together while he waits for rescue that never comes. Emmy Rossum, as Jennifer, and Mía Maestro, as Elena, get less to do, and their roles are largely reduced to running and screaming.
The Ballroom
The film’s central set piece is the ballroom, where Robert and some officers rescue Conor on a piano bolted to the ceiling of what is now the upside-down ship. It is a clever bit of staging, and it shows a real sense of spatial invention. The water floods the room, the piano stays fixed, and the survivors must climb over broken furniture to reach the boy. It is tense and well-shot, and it gives the film a moment of genuine ingenuity.
The Sprinkler System
The club scene is where the film’s structural problems become obvious. Jennifer finds Christian pinned under fallen lighting equipment, and she convinces Elena to help pull him out. They are the only ones who avoid being electrocuted when broken wires electrify the water from the activated sprinkler system. It is a thin premise for a set piece, and it is executed with little imagination. The electricity does not feel like anything more than an excuse to light the room.
The Captain’s Speech
Captain Bradford attempts to restore order and assures the survivors that emergency beacons were launched and that rescue is on the way within several hours. He convinces them to stay where they are and wait for help. Dylan Johns, however, is unconvinced. He believes the only escape is through the bow thrusters, which are now above water. He reluctantly allows Maggie, Connor, Richard, and Robert to come with him, with Valentine guiding them through the ship.
This is the film’s central dilemma, and it is poorly handled. The Captain’s speech is a moment of hope that the film then immediately undercuts. The survivors are told to stay put, and the film then makes the same choice: the survivors must stay put, but they cannot. The tension between the two positions is never resolved, because the film never gives the Captain’s argument a proper answer. He simply disappears from the story after his speech.
The Final Stretch
The film’s final act is a long, exhausting crawl through the ship’s bowels. A lift shaft is encountered, and a table is used as a bridge to cross a gap. The survivors move from one piece of debris to the next, and the film relies on the viewer’s patience to keep the story moving. It is not a bad idea, but it is a thin one, and it is stretched across a runtime that feels far longer than 98 minutes.
The film’s problems are not hard to see. The script is thin, the characters are thin, and the dialogue is thin. The film’s strength is in its spectacle, and its weakness is in its writing. It is a film that knows exactly what it wants to photograph, and it has no idea what to do with the people inside the frame.
The Numbers
Poseidon grossed $181 million worldwide on a budget of $160 million. After the costs of promotion and distribution, Warner Bros. lost $70–80 million on the film. That is a box-office bomb. The film was nominated at the 79th Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects, and it is easy to see why the nomination was given. The visual effects are the film’s best work. The writing is not.
| Element | Poseidon (2006) |
|---|---|
| Director | Wolfgang Petersen |
| Writer | Mark Protosevich |
| Runtime | 98 minutes |
| Genre | Adventure, Action, Drama, Thriller |
| Story | Adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 1969 novel The Poseidon Adventure |
| Box office loss | $70–80 million |
The Verdict
Poseidon is a film that gets one thing right and does not get much else. The wave is impressive, and the sets are cleverly arranged. The characters are a collection of templates, and the script is a chain of events without a soul. It is a film that understands how to photograph a disaster but not how to write one. If you are looking for a disaster film to watch, there are better choices. If you are looking for a film that respects its audience, this is not it.
Poseidon is a film where the setup is better than the execution. The wave is worth watching, and everything after it is not. The film is a reminder that spectacle is not the same thing as storytelling, and that a disaster can be a disaster without being a story worth telling. It is not a good film, but it is a disaster that is easy to watch for a while.
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