Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Dear god why? This was just too painful too watch, not to mention the heart breaking second rate acting going on! Did a bunch of retired actors get together and decide to, not only, ruin a classic, but what was left of their careers also? Such a shame!

First of all, let me just say people overreact ridiculously to this film. I've seen it a number of times in the past few years, so I know it well enough to know it isn't the worst film in the world. However, that's not to say it isn't bad, or isn't laughable at times. This is one of those films that's fun to put on on one of those "curl up on the couch and watch a bad movie" sort of day.For those familiar with the classic disaster film "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) or the most recent remake "Poseidon" (2006), it's the same story - on New Years Eve, a cruise ship capsizes while hundreds of people celebrate the holiday in the ship's ballroom. A group of them decide that, instead of sitting and waiting for help, to climb up, through, and find a way out of the ship before it sinks would be the smarter idea. The original film was a massive smash hit that can be claimed to be the "classic" disaster film. Sure, there were disaster films before that, but the original film is what set the genre in motion. Certainly without it, films like "The Towering Inferno", "Titanic", "The Day After Tomorrow" might not have never existed.So what do we have here? Like most NBC projects, you've got a great idea, a decent cast who desperately needs direction, yet you hire a terrible director and an even worse screenwriter. I'm going to start and say this - the writing in this film is an absolute joke. It's hard to believe that, at some points, the director didn't have scenes cut or the studio didn't step in and stop things from going bad to worse.There's a hilarious attempt at "realism" here. The original film has the ship capsizing due to a massive tsunami wave - unlikely, yes, but explained well enough so it's passable. But this... I'm not sure why they did what they did here. Instead of a massive wave, it's a terrorist attack. Stay with me here - terrorists are working on the ship and have bombs hidden in kegs of beer, yet only one bomb detonates on one side of the ship, and we get a bunch of bull---t science exposition about how it "can happen" even though it'd be obvious to an eight grade student it can't happen. This idea backfired sharply.We've actually got some veteran actors here, and some aren't bad. Rutger Hauer, who does well with what he's given. Adam Baldwin shows his teeth a lot. Steve Guttenberg being Steven Guttenberg. Alexa Hamilton gives everyone bizarre looks as she turns her head slowly (about eight times in the film). C. Thomas Howell, however, is the most natural at what he's given and does fine. The younger actors, however, are literally CRYING for some direction here, but it's like the director is just sitting back and eating a taco while watching his film sink. It's awful to see at parts. The characterization... wow. Not only are the majority of characters uninteresting, the ones that have potential to be interesting are either annoying, one-dimensional, or begin to do things that have no real purpose. None of the characters ever act like they're in a disaster. It just seems like they're going through a haunted house at Six Flags. Belle Rosen starts nearly every sentence she says with "My husband Manny..." and goes to worship him like he's the sun god or something. The good characters are good, the bad characters are bad, and there's very little in between.And for a disaster film, there's no tension or horror. It's really, really easy to figure out who's going to get killed off in the main group - character's with few lines, or with little to do. It's really as if they had little left to do with the characters and just killed them off for the "shock value", but considering they die and no one ever mentions them again, it's a bit pointless. We also, for the first time, get to see the rescue operations taking place outside of the ship. This adds an extra 20 minutes in run-time with a bunch of characters we don't care about (but they try to get us to) and takes away any mystery if there's help outside of the ship. A big plus the 1972 film had was that it focused on what was happening inside the ship and only that - we had no idea if there was help outside at all. Was it all worth it in the end? Did it all come to a dead end? , in this film, you KNOW who's going to live and who's going to die. NO risks are taken.Now don't get me wrong, this film does have quite a bit of positive aspects to it. For a TV miniseries, the effects are quite good. Surprisingly good in some scenes, in fact (and surprisingly bad in other scenes - it's odd). The set pieces are well done, such as the ballroom and some other places. A lot of it seems to be like they modeled after Cruise Ship Tycoon or something, but it's passable. There's also some clever references to the original novel here that other films haven't done yet, and some subtle references to the original film that make Poseidon fans a bit more excited. Some scenes are even very well acted and well done. The capsizing scene is quite effective as well, though a bit silly at times. Give credit where credit is due.Overall, is it good? No. Perhaps slightly enjoyable. Such a thing is rare, considering this film is pretty much hated among both the Poseidon fan community and just humankind in general, but it's fun to watch every now and again. It's quite a good lesson to aspiring filmmakers on how not to make a disaster movie.5/10

You wouldn't think that 3 hours of something as iconic as the Poseidon Adventure would be forgettable, but this is.The insertion of a wholly unnecessary (an massively unconvincing) terrorist plot subplot draws attention away from the main course - do our survivors escape? The fact that we don't care very much about the survivors (and particularly about the adultery-and-its-consequences subplot which impinges on a good chunk of them doesn't help).The TV movie budget means that we are never looking at masses of production value on screen, but instead we are looking at very dim lighting to disguise the absence of production budget - OK, I know there wouldn't be much light, but this is ridiculous.And there is too much of it, given that it is plodding and fairly uninteresting a lot of the time.

Some films that aren't really that bad will receive a rating like this, not because they are horrible in relation to other films of the same rating or better, but because they had so much potential and really not much excuse for failing as a film.This is one of those. A strong cast, a good (remake) concept, plenty of budget- all which leave the viewers with a nagging question, "why did it suck?"It certainly had plenty going for it, which is the main reason I am so disappointed and feel that it deserves a rating of 3 or less. The entire movie is a montage of ripped off scenes from other big budget flicks, and it's almost as if the writers were deliberately trying to flip off the audience by implying they were too dumb to recognize the same scene/situational format from Armageddon, Titanic, hell- even finding Nemo!Maybe they thought a remake didn't warrant a great script, or maybe they were in too much of a hurry to actually come up with their own so they decided "borrow" from other movies. Either way, it's the main reason I gave the movie such a low rating, as it was pretty insulting when the father acknowledges his daughters boyfriend is the one that has to go on a suicide mission to save them all, only to trick the boyfriend and go in his place, so that his daughter wouldn't lose the love of her life. (Gee, reminds me of a certain Bruce Willis/ Ben Affleck scene in Armageddon).This movie has little to offer, other than watching a ship get knocked around and broken up, and some of the drowning scenes are indeed interesting, but overall it didn't deliver.Skip it unless you enjoy made for TV movies.