POSEIDON (Blu Ray)

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Written by Mark Protosevich
Stars: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett

Since Wolfgang Petersen directed his World War Two masterpiece Das Boot he has (with the determination of an endurance athlete) inexorably slid towards cinematic mediocrity and abyssal-deep banality. It’s easy to trace his decline after the ‘Hitchcockian’ Shattered and the efficient thriller In The Line of Fire. Without warning came the execrable Air Force One, the leaden The Perfect Storm, culminating with Troy, a camp epic that managed to reduce one of literatures greatest tomes to scenery chewing and Brad Pitt’s glistening ab’s. Soonafter, Hollywood’s fuck-headed typing pool of banana-chewing Simian screenwriters flung a script onto Petersen’s doorstep, its story gouged from the plot of Ronald Neame’s 1972 ensemble epic The Poseidon Adventure, where a rag-tag group of misfits find their way to the surface through the wreckage of an upturned ocean liner when a ‘rogue wave’ flips it during New Years Eve celebrations. In this remake, the survivors struggling to get to the surface are career-gambler Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas), ex-New York Mayor Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell), degenerate gambler Lucky Larry (Entourage’s ‘Johnny Drama’ Kevin Dillon), Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) and Maggie James (Jacinda Barrett). After numerous fiery set pieces, the group diminishes until a handful remains. Who lives? Who dies? Who cares? The extras are not bad, with a production assistant’s video diary of the film set as well as a featurette on the set construction, there’s also a documentary on those pesky rogue waves.