#90: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

3

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

No, but I have seen the episode of Pokemon which has the exact same plot

BEST SEQUENCE

When the ship capsizes and life gets flip-turned upside down

BEST LINE

"You see, that's the sign for life and life always matters very much" - one of the characters IMMEDIATELY before dying. Like two seconds before. Meant to be poignant, I thought it was hilarious

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

80%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"The Poseidon Adventure exemplifies the disaster film done right, going down smoothly with ratcheting tension and a terrific ensemble to give the peril a distressingly human dimension."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Nine people explore a cruise ship at sea in a manner that turns their whole lives upside down." - Hey, IMDB, this is my blog! Leave the smug, moderately clever remarks to me! 

THOUGHTS

• This movie did absolutely NOTHING for me. I did not enjoy watching a bunch of annoying people overact their way off of this ship
• And the cast was stacked, including five Academy Award-winning actors! But I did not care about a single one of these characters. The worst offenders, though, were Eric Shea as the requisite precocious little kid and Ernest Borgnine as a blustery, argumentative cop whose eyebrows can be used as a flotation device in case of an emergency

• Probably the most appealing character (while still not all that appealing) was Gene Hackman as the reverend who takes charge of the escape attempt. He was also a bit of a fashion trendsetter in his cold shoulder turtleneck

• I grew up watching Leslie Nielsen be silly in a serious way in movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, so it was kind of funny to see him in this movie being serious in a serious way as the ship's captain, especially since this is exactly the style of ridiculous disaster movie that Airplane! was directly spoofing
• Some of the practical effects and stunts are good, and the actors did most of them themselves, but other times it just looks like they shake the camera and tell the actors to pretend they're losing their balance
• I'm giving The Poseidon Adventure a 3/10 for some of those aforementioned stunts, but I really was not entertained by this movie one bit. I'd rather watch Titanic. I'd rather watch Airplane!. I'd rather watch that episode of Pokemon I mentioned. If you're keeping score at home, and I pray that you are, this now means that The Poseidon Adventure has the lowest score of any movie I've reviewed, lower even than Robin Hood: Men in Tights. And I stand by that, although I wouldn't be surprised if there are some people out there who hold a nostalgic affection for it

Up next: The first of several WWII movies on this list, The Guns of Navarone from 1961