Poseidon
Adventure Reviews
My Personal Review
TV Guide
Amazon
Media Screen
Still
Seaworthy - by yours truly
Anyone who has seen as many disaster movies as I have knows that this is absolutely
the best one ever made. For a film nearly thirty years old, Poseidon Adventure is still so
effective that it would cause anyone planning to take a cruise to think twice. You
probably know the plot--luxury liner capsized by a tidal wave. This synopsis is brought to
life with suspense, drama, and sometimes, terrifying reality. One of the most effective
cinematic touches is that in nearly every scene, the camera is slowly swaying back and
forth to give us a sense that we really are at sea. Something "Titanic"
completely missed.
We follow the journey of ten survivors through the inverted ship to their hopeful rescue--narrowly escaping fires, explosions, and flooding corridors every step of the way. The sets are epic and nothing less than spectacular. Especially the inverted dining room when the Atlantic Ocean comes crashing in, and the twisted metal inferno that is the inverted engine room. The cast is good--if not great, however Gene Hackman, Shelly Winters, and Stella Stevens are best. Hackman is our handsome hero, Winters is our unselfish caring mother, and Stevens is absolutely radiant (pre-capsize) and adds a welcome touch of humor to the mess.
No, the movie is not perfect, and it is of course starting to look a bit dated. However the suspense and dazzling effects will keep you glued to your seat and you certainly won't be bored. Poseidon Adventure is a true classic. A must see for everyone--not just disaster movie fans.
TV Guide
This picture started the disaster film craze of the 1970s, but few proved to be as
successful in depicting the incredible situations, or as profitable at the box office, as
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Producer Allen had his biggest successes on television, where he
oversaw the production of classics including THE TIME TUNNEL and LOST IN SPACE. He brought
his idea that audiences enjoy seeing dangerous, suspenseful situations, and it turned into
a financial success. Though many of the situations seem totally implausible to the
discerning eye, the majority of audiences were quite taken in. During a New Year's Eve
celebration aboard a luxury liner, a tidal wave capsizes the ship, killing all but 10
people. Led by Hackman, a priest who believes in action instead of prayer, the 10 make
their way through electrical conduits, air shafts, and a blazing engine room before they
reach the bottom of the ship. Along the way Hackman loses his life to allow the others to
reach safety. The cast members play their roles effectively, keeping any form of dramatic
action down to a minimum. A well thought-out script and fine direction keep a steady
amount of tension, which doesn't let up until the survivors are rescued. The sequel was
BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE made in 1979 by Warner Bros. The film won a Special Effects
Oscar and the tune "The Morning After" nabbed the Best Song award. The film was
also nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Winters), Best Cinematography, Best Art
Direction, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Film Editing and Best Costume Design.
Amazon.com essential
video
Hands down, this is the best movie (and was one of the first) to come out of
the seemingly endless cycle of disaster movies that dominated box offices during the
1970s. It could even be argued that Titanic owes some of its success to the
precedent set by this 1972 blockbuster starring Gene Hackman as a priest who leads a small
group of survivors to safety from the bowels of a capsized luxury liner. From its stellar
cast to its cheesy, Oscar-winning theme song, The Morning After, the movie has all
the ingredients of a popular classic, beginning with a New Year's Eve celebration aboard
the ill-fated Poseidon and ending as a pop allegory when the Hackman character
becomes a Christ-like martyr. Filmed on spectacular sets where everything down is up and
the ship's thick hull points in the direction of salvation, this is "a waterlogged Grand
Hotel" (in the words of New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael) that is as
entertaining as it is unabashedly brainless. The Poseidon Adventure is filled with
performances that rise above the limits of the screenplay. It's also the only
movie--unless you count her underwater corpse in Night of the Hunter--that lets
Shelley Winters strut her stuff as an aquatic heroine. Who could ask for anything more? --Jeff
Shannon
Media Screen
While not the true prototype of the '70s all-star-cast disaster
film genre (that honor really belongs to 1970's "Airport"), "The Poseidon
Adventure" is widely revered as the leader of the pack, the film that paved the way
for "The Towering Inferno," "Earthquake," "Rollercoaster,"
"Meteor," three "Airport" sequels and, let's not forget, "The
Swarm." The story is simple: a tidal wave capsizes a cruise liner on her farewell
voyage during a New Year's Eve celebration. A handful of cardboard characters -- played by
the likes of Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons and Roddy
McDowall -- must band together and work their way to safety if they are to survive.
Hopelessly dated and gleefully cheesy today, the film definitely has some kitsch value,
but the suspense is canned and the situations of human conflict are so preposterously
melodramatic that the film occasionally plays like high camp. Still, the special effects
are impressive, and the upside-down sets are a collective eye-popper.