Poseidon

Starring Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum, Kevin Dillon

Rated PG-13

            “Poseidon” is Wolfgang Peterson’s first film since “Troy,” which was considered a disappointment at the 2004 summer box office. I actually found “Troy” to be quite a spectacular movie, and if you consider “Troy” a failure, I don’t know what you’d call “Poseidon.” This new film, which follows “Mission: Impossible III” to liven up the summer viewing schedule, is entertaining but extremely uneven. Some people will compare it to “The Day After Tomorrow,” but that film had a more consistent tone of urgency. “Poseidon” eventually finds its ground and succeeds in being a lot of fun, but that doesn’t excuse the first half of the film, which has clichés stamped over every page of the script.

            Josh Lucas leads the large cast as Dylan Johns, one of many passengers on the Titanic-sized cruise ship Poseidon. When a ‘rogue wave’ hits the boat literally five minutes into the movie, the Poseidon flips upside down, and the passengers lucky enough to have survived start panicking. Johns, determined to find a way out of the ship, dismisses the captain’s orders to stay in the dance ballroom and struggles forward to the top of the boat. Joining him are former firefighter Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell, giving the best performance in the film), his daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum), Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss), stowaway Elena (Mia Maestro), and a bunch of others destined to drown.

            As I said, the film pulls forward in the second half, and ends up becoming a pretty thrilling ride. But too many of the characters, save for Russell’s, aren’t very interesting or worth caring about in the first place. “Poseidon” isn’t the perfect summer movie, but it tries hard enough to keep the entire project from sinking to the bottom.

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