The Poseidon Adventure Redux

I paid good money to see the original Poseidon Adventure back in 1972 and if you want to know the whole truth, I enjoyed it. Then. Over the years the movie seemed to become increasingly unbelievable, as many of Irwin Allen's projects did. Therefore it was with less than high expectations that I approached the television remake of the movie, particularly after having been subjected to such projects as Vampire Bats, Category 6 and it's sequel Category 7 and of course 10.5. All are of course the sort of subjects that Irwin Allen would have enjoyed, and might even have made in his day. I have to admit that I braced for something of less than high quality. Fortunately the television version wasn't as bad as it very well could have been. It wasn't great, it wasn't really even above average, but it was still an enjoyable bit of entertainment.

I think that everyone is sufficiently familiar with the story of the original Poseidon Adventure that I don't need to go into detail about most of the plot of the remake except in so far as it differs from from the original. There are really two major points here. First there is a whole terrorism plot, which is what causes the ship to "turn turtle" in the first place (I'll go into that shortly). The terror plot is briefly touched at the start of the movie, with a raid by American special ops forces on a terrorist organization which is arranging a series of attacks against "soft targets" on land and in the air for New Years Eve. The pattern is such that the investigators "know" that there should be a sea component but that part of the information has been destroyed and there are no living terrorists left at their headquarters who can explain what is going on. It is however enough to cause the Department of Homeland Security to put an "sea marshal" aboard the cruise ship Poseidon. He's Mike Rogo (played by Adam "no I'm not related to Alec or the rest of that bunch" Baldwin). By the way, here's a trick question - why is a Homeland Security "sea marshal" abord the ship when there are virtually no US flagged cruise ships in existance (lrgely thanks to union rules and tax structures). The notion of a bomb on a ship actually borrows from a movie that is one of my favourite thrillers, Juggernaut. The other major plot aspect is the tensions within the Clarke Family - dad Richard, mom Rachel, daughter Shelby and young son Dylan. The Clarkes are a "family in crisis" - dad is a failed writer who is living off of mom's fortune (she turned a small boutique into a multi-million dollar clothing chain) - and their marriage is going through such a rough patch that when they get a suite aboard the Poseidon Rachel and Shelby sleep in one bed while Richard and Dylan sleep in the other. So naturally when the comely masseuse aboard the ship comes on to Richard he succumbs as often as is physically possible for a man of Steve Guttenberg's age. I found the terrorism plot interesting, and it did provide a couple of the best scenes in the movie. In one a terrorist kills the bridge crew, turns off all of the equipment that might save the ship before blowing his own brains out lest he be tempted to turn them back on. The other has Captain Paul Gallico (played by the criminally underused Peter Weller - the name is a nice tribute to the author of the original book by the way) striding up the main staircase from the ballroom, the only man left who can save the ship, and being shot by the remaining terrorist. On the other hand I found the concentration on the travails of the Clarke marriage to be tedious. It took time away from us learning more about other characters.

This remake of The Poseidon Adventure is scarcely perfect, or even quite as good as it might have been had it been presented in the manner it was intended when it was produced as a four hour miniseries. The overwhelming sense I got when watching it was that there was significant information that was missing which would must have been in the hour or so that was cut. There were questions which needed to be answered which might well have been if that hour had been included - how did young Dylan Clarke know that Mrs. Rosen could make the swim and what were all those "challenges" he was referring to. For that matter why was Dylan given virtually free run of all areas of the ship simply on the authority of the Restaurant Manager (or whatever he was). In another area, I may have missed something but it's only in the last few minutes - where Bishop Schmidt is arguing that he should set off the second bomb - that I found out that Rogo was married, although his wife wasn't on the trip. There are other structural problems. I wasn't particularly happy that we were almost immediately "told" who we were supposed to care about and be interested in through the device of the characters having their ship ID pictures shot and the ID card - with name - shown on screen. I'm just enough of a stickler for dramatic tension that I'd like to be kept guessing about who is going to live and who is going to die. For me it would have been far more interesting to let us get to know a larger number of people so that when the ship capsizes and the ballroom scene occurs we're shocked when some characters that we've invested some interest in die by crashing to the floor or ceiling. There's no dramatic tension in knowing from the beginning which characters are going to be the prime focus of our interest. Dramatic tension is further undermined by intercutting scenes of the rescue effort focused mainly at 5th Fleet Headquarters and with the Navy SEALs. For me the problem with this is that the movie should be almost entirely confined within the ship - will they make it out and if they do,will there be someone out there to help them. The way that this was written, we know that there will be rescuers waiting for them and able to help them with more than just getting off the hull of the ship and into boats. The original benefits from the sort of claustrophobic nature of the audience being as trapped as the people on the ship.

There's been a lot of talk elsewhere about the implausability of the single terrorist bomb causing the ship to turn over. Actually I think it is far more realistic than the whole "giant rogue wave" scenario which was used in the original movie. I am far more willing to suspend my disbelief over this method of inverting the ship than I was with the rogue wave theory. The ship being inverted did lead to one of the biggest technical goofs in the whole movie though. It is a key plot element that Rachel Clarke be able to email a message telling about the emergency to her "Christmas List" using the ship's Internet cafe. The only trouble is that a passenger ship at sea connects to the Internet using a satellite link, and all of the ship's satellite gear was pointing to the bottom of the ocean so sending the email was impossible. One thing that really bothered me even more than this was the fact that the only survivors were from the main ballroom. Now I get that this is TV and there isn't the budget to show even a tenth of the ship's 3,500 passengers but why was there no one alive outside of the ballroom? Even in the original movie there is a sequence where the survivors from the ballroom encounter another, larger, group led by one of the ship's officers heading in a different direction - as it turns out to their deaths. Yet we are left thinking that anyone who wasn't originally in the ballroom and thus under the influence of the ship's hotel services manager - a man suddenly given the sort of petty dictatorial powers that such a fool dreams of without really knowing what he's supposed to do or being able to make the right sort of decisions - just laid in their bunks and died. It's just impossible to believe that only the fifteen or so people who left the ballroom were the only ones to survive the initial accident and tried to escape the ship. Another problem I had was with the ease with which Rogo was able to find Richard and the second party of survivors and reunite them with the main group with seemingly greater ease than the other group had faced. On some level it makes Mrs. Rosen's sacrifice less significant if there's another route to the opening in the hull that doesn't require the survivors to go through the same trials that the original group did.

The cast of this version is nowhere near as strong as the original which included five once or future Oscar winners (Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters who also earned a nomination for the role of Belle Rosen in the movie). I wasn't terribly impressed with Rutger Hauer as Bishop Schmidt. He didn't seem to have the same sort of passion that Gene Hackman brought to the part of Father Scott. In the original so that I didn't believe him as someone who was having a crisis of faith. As for Steve Guttenburg in the role of Richard Clarke, well the less said the better about him - I've never been a fan. On the other hand Adam Baldwin is always enjoyable even though in this movie he doesn't get the chance to reveal his funny side. I rather liked Sylvia Syms version of Mrs. Rosen and her death scene was a rather tender moment.

On the whole, The Poseidon Adventure wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been and significantly better than some of what we've seen recently. Comparisons with the original movie are misleading, to the point where, if this weren't called The Poseidon Adventure reaction from some people might be different. The cruise ship business is booming right now, and mega-ships resembling the TV movie's Poseidon do exist and represent a potential target for terrorists. However calling this The Poseidon Adventure does lead to comparisons with the original, most of which aren't going to be favourable. Setting those sorts of comparisons aside, if I were grading it I'd give it passing marks, although not with high honours.

A Slight Delay

I had planned to post a review of Poseidon Adventure tonight but a couple of things got in the way. First I had to crunch some numbers for my bowling league. Second, I taped it because I watch Desperate Housewives and Gray's Anatomy with my mom - except tonight we missed the start because Little Brother was cooking at his place and there was a Bruins game on. Don't interfere with Little Brother and his Bruins. Finally - and most importantly - the movie is three frigging hours long and I'm feeling like crap right now.

I should post something tomorrow.

Maybe.

One thing though - why oh why did NBC have to put it on opposite TCM's Harold Lloyd Festival?

I Told Him "Julie Don't Watch"

I don't know that much about Ancient Rome, but thanks to a first year Classics course at University and an abiding interest in history, I probably know more than the average guy. While this is normally a good thing, when it comes to reviewing the new ABC miniseries Empire a little knowledge is not only dangerous but can blow the whole premise out of the water if one is inclined to view it as a history rather than as a drama.

Empire supposedly tells the tale of the events leading up to and following the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar in 45 B.C and the rise of his nephew and adopted son Octavius as Caesar, under the protection and tutelage of the gladiator Tyrannus. Octavius is portrayed as a pampered teen, inexperienced and perplexed by the complexity of the situation that he finds himself in, which Tyrannus has to guide him through. This is the central core of the story around which the other conflicts flow. The death of Gaius Julius Caesar left a power vacuum which his murderers intended to fill, as did Marc Antony who was his trusted colleague and aide. Political intrigue was the order of the day and the miniseries makes it clear that Octavius is nowhere near ready for this. He must flee Rome, with Tyrannus, in order to eventually claim the title of Caesar. Throw in what will probably be a "forbidden romance" with a Vestal Virgin and the whole thing descends into the realm of typical movie of the week material instead of the epic return of the miniseries format that I'm sure the producers were hoping for.

The miniseries manages to commit major crimes against history and gets niggling little details wrong in a manner that is thoroughly irritating to anyone with a knowledge of the period. The miniseries is dependent on the idea that Octavius was a politically naive boy who had never been in battle, and that he had been surprised by being named Caesar's heir. In fact while he was not a seasoned military veteran, like all Roman citizens he had begun his military training at age 17 - he was 19 at the time of Caesar's death - and had served in Caesar's last campaign in Spain a one of the leaders of the 10th Legion. He was also well aware that he had been adopted. Indeed, contrary to the central conceit of Empire, Octavius wasn't even in Rome at the time of Gaius Julius Caesar's death - he was in Illyria (now Albania and the former Yugoslavia) training with the Macedonian legions for Caesar's planned campaign in Syria against the Parthians. They even manage to get titles wrong. Repeatedly the conspiratorial senators use the expression "Caesar" as if it was already a title as when Cassius yells at Octavius "You'll never be Caesar!" In fact he already was, by virtue of his adoption, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Similarly Mark Antony is repeatedly referred to simply as "General". Antony was in fact one of the two Roman Consuls for the year, the other being Gaius Julius Caesar, and a Consul was far more than "just" a general. Absent entirely from this production are Calpurnia (Caesar's wife), Cleopatra (his mistress and Queen of Egypt) and Caesarian (his natural son with Cleopatra) despite the fact that all were in Rome at the time.

Setting aside the historic ignorance being displayed in this production - and what I've mentioned above is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg - the production is basically uneven. There are some very good actors in this thing. Canadian based actor Colm Feore, who played Pierre Trudeau in the CBC mini-series Trudeau is excellent as Caesar (contrary to various comments Feore is not British - he was born in Boston and lives in Stratford Ontario) and Michael Byrne is very good as Cicero. James Frain, who played Paul Raines in 24 plays a too young looking and uncertain Brutus (strictly speaking Marcus Junius Brutus - two of Caesar's assassins had the cognomen Brutus the other being Decimius Junius Brutus Albinus) but does excellent work. Vincent Regan plays Marc Antony and just by his appearance is an excellent choice - he looks as dull witted as the real Antony reputedly was, comfortable only in his leather breastplate. Sadly not much can be said for the remainder of the cast. They aren't particularly inspiring, and Orla Brady plays Octavian's mother Atia (consistently callled Caesar's sister when in reality she was his niece, daughter of his eldest sister Julia - all Roman women were named with a feminized version of their clan or gens name thus both of Caesar's sisters were named Julia) with what can best be described as melodramatic flair. The less said about Santiago Cabrera as Octavian, the better.

The CGI recreations of the City of Rome are rather good and presumably fairly accurate, but there's a definite sense that they skimped in other areas. The crowd scenes in particular seem underpopulated. ABC and Touchstone Pictures spent a great deal of money making Empire but it seems unevenly distributed. They might, for example, have bought a better script. The fact that the mini-series, which was supposed to mark a revival of the big mini-series on network TV, is being burned off in June and July rather than in a sweeps period indicates that someone at ABC realised that they had a real loser on their hands. ABC would have been better off buying the rights to one of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome novels such as First Man In Rome. Instead they ended up with this mess. Watch only if there's nothing else you'd rather see. Or, if you want to be entertained, try to get a copy of Wayne and Shuster's Rinse The Blood Off My Toga - it's about as historically accurate.