October Horror Challenge 2018 #40: "Poseidon"

So back in 2006, I drowned. I was swimming in the river with a friend of mine,  and I wasn't a strong swimmer,  so when I got caught in an undertow I hit my head on a rock and I drowned. My friend had to drag me out of the water and give me mouth to mouth and revive me. It was pretty traumatic, and I can go into the water still today, but I have to stop myself from panicking. So like the intelligent person that I am, I avoid watching movies where people drown...oh wait, no I don't,  I watch them, and they freak me out every time. Even the bad ones freak me out. Like, even looking at the POSTER for this movie creeped me out. But here I am, watching it. I'm a glutton for punishment.

This movie us a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure," which was a disaster/horror flick from 1972. Back in the 70s, it was fashionable to make big movies about disasters or tragedies, pack them with well-known actors, and market the crap out of them before releasing them into theaters with a lot of fanfare. The fact that these movies were usually terrible didn't bother movie studios,  because they were usually big hits anyway.

This movie follows the pattern of packing the movie with well-known performers (I'll stop short of calling them "stars'). Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Jacinda Barrett, and Fergie appear in this movie, among other names. The original movie had Gene Hackman, Ernist Borgnine, Carol Lynly, and Red Bottons and a bunch of other stars. The point of the movie seemed to be to pack the screen with well known players, and people will show up even if the movie is terrible.

This movie cost about $160 million to make and it only made $181 million or so, which is a lot of money but not enough to be considered a hit. I guess the plot matters more than star power after all. There's not much plot here. A big luxury cruise liner encounters a tidal wave and turns upside down, leaving the survivors to fend for themselves and try to survive.

The boat crashing effects really freaked me out, but that could just be because of my fear of drowning. I don't feel like I got to know the characters enough, so watching them die horribly didn't affect me as much as it would have if the script had been better. I love Andre Braugher, and he does the best he can with his role, like he always does. It's not his fault that the script isn't very good. You can't just throw a bunch of stars into a movie and hope for the best. In the end, the water effects got under my skin, and the actors worked hard, but the movie wasn't worth my investing more care than even the filmmakers put into it.