Poll Position: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

This week we had our first tie on the poll between The Poseidon Adventure and The Perfect Storm. Seeing as there were 2 movies that "won" and 2 guys on this site, we figured "Hey, why not just do both?" So while I watched the Poseidon luxury liner sink, Puneet will hop on later today with his review of The Perfect Storm.

This is a simple story of survival when a luxury liner is rolled by a monstrous wave caused by an undersea quake. Foolish management has left the boat top heavy, resulting in a deadly outcome. A handful of people decide to try to head up, to the bottom of the boat where they hope to be rescued. Hit the jump to see if this movie stays afloat, or if it's a sinker!

This movie has quite the unlikely cast. The most prominent name is Gene Hackman who plays Reverend Scott, the small group of survivor's unlikely leader. I also recognized the second in command after the Reverend who was played by Ernest Borgnine. I'm not sure what I've seen him in before, but he's one of those faces and voices you just don't forget. For the most part the acting was ok, there was some annoying overacting here and their, but I think that comes with the territory of the times the movie was made in. Unfortunately there is a really annoying terrible little boy in the movie who is just never any good and always seems to be yelling, even for his regular lines. Just wanted to tell him to shut up for the whole movie.

The sets and action are pretty damn great!

The action is pretty entertaining, and is all the more disorienting since everything in every scene is upsidedown. I found it unusually fascinating to see them walking along catwalks, precariously keeping their balance, while all the safety rails hang twisted and mangled below them. To put it simply, the sets in this movie are great. I totally bought that they were actually in a sinking ship. How I long for the days of 100% practical effects. Now that I've said that, I'm just a little more worried about the new Green Lantern movie with it's 100% CG superhero suit. But I'm getting sidetracked. Real fire and real water all give the impression of real danger!

The only other thing I could gripe about would be the strange underwater explosions. Sadly bubbles and red blinking lights from a model ship don't really cut it. I was going to say "these days" at the end there, but I don't even think that would have been all that convincing in the 70's either. Oh well, they did the best they could I suppose, and those effects are only on screen for split seconds a few times through the movie, so I suppose it's more of a nit pick than anything else.

I wish the effects in these scenes of the ship were better

If you like disaster movies, and you can overlook a little bit of 70's overacting, and some screaming utterly helpless women, and those old effects, this is a very good movie. I was drawn in and liked a good number of the characters, and like I said their adventure through the ship is pretty entertaining. If it pops on tv, definitely give it a watch.