Column #30: Poseidon: All Wet, Washed Up, or Just Plain Sucks?

I'll save you the suspense of reading the entire review and let the cat out of the bag right now. This movie was -

Wait a minute. If you don't already know the answer, maybe I'm doing a disservice by not making you, the faithful reader(s) (I hope it's plural because ONE is the loneliest number, unless you're a hermit, in which case one is the most appropriate number, unless of course you're not a hermit by choice but rather by body odor or poor disposition, unless of course this column is read by lots of wi-fi loving, laptop wielding hermits, then I apologize for my blatant insensitivity and non-hermit agenda.) Whew! Where was I? Oh yeah...faithful reader read this review in a effort to better understand films and filmmaking combined with discourses, rants, and occasional witty observation (very, very occasionally). But I'm neither this good, nor this angry. I won't, no I can't make you read an entire review about Poseidon because then I'd only be perpetrating the pain. And I won't be a perpetrator! Of pain! Or anything else that involves...Aw, screw it!

Let me discuss my general impressions of the movie, without going too deep into the actual specifics, the better to spare you...aural discomfort. Look it up. I think it's on wikipedia somewhere. Here they are: there's a really big computer-generated (CG, to those in the know like myself) boat, not unlike the one in Speed 2, but without the terrible plot and Sandra Bullock's outrageous bikini-clad body...no, wait actually, this had...a terrible plot. Gotta be careful these days, what with the power of the net at my fingertips. Might accidentally send some overly visually stimulated youngsters to Poseidon. Seriously, there is no Sandra Bullock bikini in this.

There's also lots and lots of CG and real water. Sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart, then again if you've ever wondered where toilet water really goes to, your prayers are answered - they end up in the corridors of this crap-fest. See what I did there? I made two allusions to crap but only mentioned it once; this is what we call so-phist-i-cated in the writing world. Sometimes the water is CG and the characters pretend to be afraid, scared, or confused, sometimes it might be all three, about this "water" seen at vast distances and from great heights. Other times the water is "real" and gets people wet. It evens looks like they are swimming in some scenes but I'm sure it's just fancy-schmancy CG in which they all pretend to swim and struggle for breath. Then again, maybe it's just the look of exasperation on their faces as they realize their agents lied to them about the quality of the movie they're in. Sometimes you gotta skip the coverage and just read a script cover-to-cover. Just an observation...

Also, this disaster flick, which is just plain disastrous, and I'm not ruining anything here, has 6 bloody survivors. That's not a disaster movie, that's a prom party. The original had like two. The genre demands but one. A disaster movie is all about famous actors and actresses perishing terribly, not about them struggling to travel upward in an upside-down boat and SURVIVE! This rings so hollow that it's a slap in the face to other disaster flicks that came before it. Six survivors, that's a bloody disgrace. Then again, the movie sucked it royally, so why be surprised? In case you didn't get the message between the lines, DON'T GO SEE POSEIDON. You'll regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon. Even Humphrey Bogart agrees.

You might notice that I spent very little time talking about the movie itself. This is because it was a truly painful experience. Kinda similar to having teeth removed by a proctologist...Or having a rectal performed by a dentist. Both scare me. They should scare you, too. Or if you're into it...And I'm sure that whatever goes on behind (pun intended?) closed doors is between you and your medical professional. Over-share...over-share...over-share...

Just because it had Emmy Rossum, who's super-cute, and Kurt Russell, who gave the best John Wayne-slash-Clint Eastwood impression ever in Big Trouble in Little China, seriously check this flick out, it kicks ass, which Poseidon does not. It doesn't even kick the dog.

So I give Poseidon two Titanics out of five and fifty-six beatings with the ugly-stick.

P.S. Apologies to the stick.

P.S.S. You might be ugly, but even the stick didn't deserve this.
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.