Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Poseidon (2006)

10/25/2023

Poseidon (2006) - Petersen's disastrous disaster flick

♥♥

+ Career Killer of the Year: Wolfgang Petersen + Costliest Flop of the Year: 87.36 mil. $ range

An upside-down cruise ship underwater makes up this disaster-teasing poster for Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon

The giant cruise ship the Poseidon gets hit on new year's night by a 'rogue wave', which turns it upside down. Chaos ensues inside, as a group of survivors fight their way to the surface!

Poseidon is written by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend (2007)), adapting The Poseidon Adventure (1969) by Paul Gallico (Miracle in the Wilderness (1975)), and co-produced and directed by German-born American master filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen (Ich Werde Dich Töten, Wolf (1971)). The novel has previously been adapted as The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979).

Really handsome visual effects, especially in the beginning of the film and around the impact of the freak wave, keeps Poseidon above water for a while as a more good-looking, appropriately silly update of the well-known, silly, tiring 1970s movie. We are introduced to plentiful characters, but the encounters become very superficial one and all, and more than once outright laughable in their corniness. Popstar Fergie (Nine (2009)), the black and the latino characters all die relatively quickly, and so the film lives up to the old Hollywood race-profile cliché of letting the white characters outlive other races.

Despite controlled length the film develops sort of like the original Poseidon movie with many long, thrill-less scenes with wet stars, flames and screaming. Petersen fails to elevate this shipwreck.

Wolfgang Petersen: 2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Top 10: Best epic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

The Boat/Das Boot (1981) - Petersen's awe-inspiring WWII epic

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 160 mil. $

Box office: 181.6 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.13 times its cost)

[Poseidon was released May 10 (Philippines, Thailand) and runs 98 minutes. Shooting took place from June - October 2005 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #2, behind Mission: Impossible III, to a 22.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#4-#5), grossing 60.6 mil. $ (33.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were South Korea with 14 mil. $ (7.7 %) and Japan with 9.9 mil. $ (5.5 %). The film was nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar, lost to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. The film additionally made in excess of 27.1 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Petersen returned with Vier Gegen die Bank (2016). Kurt Russell (Vanilla Sky (2001)) returned in Death Proof (2007). Poseidon is rotten at 33 % with a 4.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

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Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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10/25/2023

Poseidon (2006) - Petersen's disastrous disaster flick

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