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Poseidon
R4 - Australia - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Jarrod Baker & Noor Razzak (24th October 2006). |
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The Film
 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure", based on Paul Gallico's novel and starring such luminaries as Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall, and Leslie Neilsen, is now rightly or wrongly considered something of a classic. A blockbuster of epic proportions (with a budget to match) it helped kick off the disaster movie genre that is still going strong today. It's hard to believe, however, that the bottom of the disaster movie barrel has been scraped so thin that Wolfgang Petersen's 2006 remake, "Poseidon", was entirely necessary. And it's even harder to believe that it was necessary to cast Fergie of 'Black Eyed Peas' fame as the on-board entertainment. Still, in selecting Petersen to direct this version, the studio should have felt confident that they had the right man for the job he's certainly got 'boat movie' experience with "Das Boot" (1981) and "The Perfect Storm" (2000) and 'disaster movie' experience with "Outbreak" (1995) under his belt and in many ways the finished product is exactly what you'd expect from the man who also brought us "In The Line of Fire" (1993), "Air Force One" (1997) and "Troy" (2004). "Poseidon" is the epitome of high concept films the plot can be summarised in a single sentence. A large cruise liner capsizes, and a group of passengers band together to try and escape. Unfortunately, with a largely forgettable cast (Kurt Russell is a long way away here from his fine work in such classic films as "Big Trouble in Little China" (1986)) and a largely unconvincing CGI boat, it's hard to care. You know how in some films you start rooting for the bad guy? In "Poseidon", the bad guy is pretty much the sinking ship and it's not hard to start wishing for the ship to win. A frequent "upping the ante" plot device is the disappearance or endangerment of the young son (Jimmy Bennett) of Jacinda Barrett's character. This funny-looking little kid wanders off so often you quickly start hoping that maybe he WILL drown, or be burnt to death, or similar. Seriously kid when your cruise liner is upside down and full of dead people, stay close to your damn mother! On the plus side there are some morals to take away from the movie. One of these morals is that although a black man can become a ship's captain, only white people survive major disasters. Another moral is that if you are Hispanic, watch out for gay men because one is likely to be directly or indirectly responsible for your death. The film is full of little nuggets of wisdom just like this. In summary "Poseidon" just isn't that great. There are some fairly inventive death scenes when the ship first capsizes (the effects of the cruise liner's enormous multi-storey ballroom being suddenly and completely inverted) but this is hardly enough to save it from being a complete dog. However the film does have one redeeming feature, Fergie dies in the first 30 minutes. That's something all right-thinking music fans have been waiting to see for quite some time. Although this DVD is stated as being Region 4, it is in fact encoded for Region 2, 4 and 5.
Video
Presented in a widescreen ratio of 2.40:1, this anamorphic transfer is stunning. The image is sharp and colors are accurate, rendered beautifully that captures their vibrancy. Skin tones are pitch perfect and natural, blacks are bold and deep, shadow detail is consistent especially in the low light scenes and interiors. I could not detect any major problems such as edge-enhancement, compression artefacts, or any other flaws. This is a fantastic image that can only be made better with a High-Definition release. Nice job Warner Brothers for continuing to release films with high quality film transfers.
Audio
This film includes two audio tracks, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 and an English Audio Descriptive Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track. The 5.1 track is a solid effort, dialogue is clean and distortion free but the true excellence of this track lies in the action and music. The surrounds are active and immersive with well mixed and balanced directional effects. The music additionally envelopes the viewer into the experience. Overall this is a sweeping effort. If only a DTS track were provided for this film... Optional subtitles are also included in English and English for the hearing impaired.
Extras
Warner Brothers have released this film as a single disc release with a featurette and the film's theatrical trailer. A 2-disc Special Edition is also available with additional video extras. The first extra on this single disc release is "Poseidon: A Ship On A Soundstage" featurette which runs for 22 minutes 42 seconds and is a typical EPK clip you'd see on television promoting the film. It covers the basic story and its influence, the cast and crew talk about how great their director is and then goes into the nitty gritty on how a film on this scale is made, with the sets, costumes, stunts and effects all in play. They cover several key moments from the film and tell us how shooting in continuity was the right way to make this film among other things. There is some value in the feature but ultimately it's as hollow as the ship's hull. Rounding out the extras is the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 1 minute 39 seconds.
Overall
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