Poseidon is a 2006 action-adventure disaster film and the third film adaptation of The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico. It stars Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum, Jacinda Barrett, and Richard Dreyfuss. It was directed by Wolfgang Petersen and produced and distributed by Warner Bros. in association with Virtual Studios. The film also had a simultaneous release in the IMAX format. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects and was released on May 12, 2006. Poseidon generated US$181,674,817 at the worldwide box office and $19,725,028 in DVD sales, making its total gross $201,399,845.[1]
Plot
On New Year's Eve in the north Atlantic Ocean, the ocean liner Poseidon, named after the Greek water god, is on a Transatlantic crossing. On one of its thirteen decks, we see Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) an ex-Navy sailor turned professional gambler, running for an evening workout. Meanwhile, in one of the 800 cabins, Jen Ramsey (Emmy Rossum) is with her fiancé Christian (Mike Vogel) when they are interrupted by Jen's father, former firefighter and mayor of New York Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell) who is becoming overprotective of his daughter and indifferent to Christian. Down below in the kitchen, a Spanish woman named Elena (Mia Maestro), is stowing away onboard from Spain to be with her sick brother in New York, with the help of her friend Valentin (Freddy Rodriguez), a waiter. Elsewhere, Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss), a distraught architect, is calling his ex-boyfriend, only to get the answering machine.
That night, Captain Michael Bradford (Andre Braugher) welcomes everyone to the grand ball room to celebrate New Year's Eve, with musical act Gloria (Stacy Ferguson) performing. Dylan and Ramsey are playing a game of Texas Hold'em with another professional gambler Lucky Larry (Kevin Dillon). Jen and Christian celebrate in the nightclub along with Elena. Over at another table, we see Nelson telling some of his friends the story of his breakup while he orders expensive champagne for the table just before excusing himself to get some air. When Dylan walks away with his winnings, he bumps into Conor James (Jimmy Bennett) and he takes an immediate liking to Dylan, as does his mother Maggie (Jacinda Barrett).
As the ship celebrates the New Year countdown, the crew on the bridge suddenly detect a 150-foot tall rogue wave coming towards the ship. Nelson, who was about to jump overboard, also sees this and he rethinks the suicide. The officer on the bridge tries to steer the ship to avoid a side-on collision, but to no avail. The wave hits the starboard side of the ship, sweeping dozens of people overboard. The Poseidon completely flips upside down and underwater within seconds.
With the ball room in a panic, Maggie notices Conor stuck on a piano on what is now the ceiling (it was bolted down). Ramsey comes over and with the help of a few others rescues Conor. Jen and Elena try to rescue Christian who is pinned down by fallen light stands in the nightclub, while people around them get electrocuted from water and electrical lines. After the initial panic, Captain Bradford calls for order and assures the people that as soon as the rogue wave hit the ship, emergency beacons were activated and rescue teams are dispatched. Dylan suggests escape may be possible via the bow thrusters, he finds himself joined by Nelson, Ramsey, Maggie, Conor, and Valentin. As they leave, the captain reluctantly seals the hatches behind them. The group makes their way to a service elevator needed to reach their destination. The group rigs a table to cross the elevator shaft, to find the doors won't open. Dylan then tries to get to the open doors above. An elevator car begins falling toward the group, everyone survives except Valentin who is impaled on debris, then crushed by the falling car. The group continues towards the propeller room.
Back in the nightclub, Elena and Jen are still struggling to rescue Christian, when Lucky Larry helps rescue him as the other group arrives. They proceed to the elevator in the main concourse of the ship. Most of the group gets across, but Lucky Larry is killed when an engine crashes through the roof and crushes him, which begins leaking fuel, which is struck with electrical sparks, and causes a fire. Dylan grabs a nearby fire hose, swims across, and climbs up to where the others are to create a zip-line. The rest of the group uses the fire hose to slide across to rejoin the main group.
Back in the ballroom, the glass windows crack under pressure and everyone drowns, the main group can do nothing as they continue on, noticing the water is slowly rising as the ship begins to sink. Meanwhile the main group finds a small air vent that they think might lead to the next level, Elena struggles to go because she is claustrophobic. While they're climbing, Ramsey congratulates Christian on the engagement just as they reach the locked exit from the shaft, then it starts to flood. Ramsey tries to unscrew it, but he can't so he calls up Conor. As Conor is climbing, Nelson suddenly slips. With Conor's help they narrowly escape the vent before they all drown. They end up in a ballast chamber, and Dylan realizes the only way out of it is to flood the chamber so the vent on one side of the room opens. They flood the chamber and escape, however Elena is killed by a blow to the head during the attempt. Rooms continue to flood and the ship continues to sink.
As the group arrives at the destination they see it is flooded. Whilst developing another plan, a massive explosion in the engine room causes a shift in weight throughout the entire ship, the stern drops as the the bow goes vertical. As they head back to their destination, they realize Conor is missing after a short search they find him trapped. Dylan rescues Conor and they reunite with the other group. Nelson sees the door to the propeller tube, when he opens it he is blown back, learning the propellers are still running. Christian says that he can swim to the control room to shut them off, but its a long flooded passage and whoever goes will certainly drown. Christian says he has better lung capacity and can make it to the controls, but Ramsey jumps in first. When he reaches the control panel, the emergency shut off switch is broken. Ramsey runs out of air, with his last breath of life manages to find the button to make the propellers run in reverse.
Back in the propeller room, everyone notices that the blades are now turning the other way. Dylan moves to throw a nitrogen tank into the blades to get them to stop and causes a huge explosion that destroys the propellers. The remaining survivors plunge to the water and make it to an inflatable raft, after the flooding has overtaken the ship, and finally sinks to the bottom of the ocean. After a brief wait, rescue helicopters arrive and the 6 survivors are saved, being the only survivors of thousands lost.
Sets
Water floods into the ballroom through the imploding windows.
The set of the ballroom for the
Poseidon.
Like the film The Poseidon Adventure, which based many of its sets on rooms aboard the RMS Queen Mary, the film's set designers drew inspiration for some of the spaces aboard the fictional Poseidon from rooms aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2, most notably in the Poseidon's ballroom, which is modeled on the main dining room of the Queen Mary 2.
On the sound stage at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California, separate sets for each main room were built — one right-side-up and the other upside-down. The upside-down ballroom set was built on top of a large water tank in the sound stage so that it could be filled with water and drained in a matter of hours. The interior (and exterior) shots of the ship rolling were constructed using computer-generated imagery. The visual effects were completed by Industrial Light & Magic and used the most advanced version of mental ray technology. Interior scenes involving flowing liquid were modeled using RealFlow.
Cast
| Actor/Actress |
Role |
| Josh Lucas |
Dylan Johns. Dylan is a professional gambler who is the leader of the party that attempts to flee the ship.
Dylan has a close relationship with Maggie and is the one who gets the others out when jamming a propane cylinder in the bow thrusters.
|
| Kurt Russell |
Robert Ramsey. He is a concerned father, a hero and someone who the others recognise from previous jobs when he was once mayor of New York and a fireman. He gives up his own life when he swims underwater to reverse the propellers allowing the others to escape. |
| Jacinda Barrett |
Maggie James. She is the mother of Conor who she risks her own life whilst trying to save him. She survives when Dylan gets them out. She has a very close relationship with Dylan. |
| Richard Dreyfuss |
Richard Nelson. Nelson is an architect who survives with the others. He has a very close relationship with Elena. Elena sees him like a father figure. Nelson survives with Dylan, Maggie, Jen, Conor and Christan. |
| Emmy Rossum |
Jennifer Ramsey. Jennifer is fiancée of Christian. Jennifer is usually concerned about what her father thinks. She escapes with the others. |
| Mía Maestro |
Elena Gonzalez is a Spanish catholic woman who comes on this boat with waiter Valentine. She is frustrated with Valentine continuously working. She is in the nightclub when the ship capsizes. She helps Jennifer and Christian, and then becomes friends with the others, but with Nelson in particular. When the group try to swim through a long corridor, Elena gets caught in some wires and sustains a severe blow her head on a wall, which badly injures her. Nelson rescues her, but she eventually dies due to the head injury. |
| Mike Vogel |
Christian. Christian is the fiancée of Jennifer, and is in the nightclub when the ship capsizes. He gets trapped under a lighting truss. With help from Jennifer and Elena, he escapes with them. Ramsey is disappointed when he finds out about the engagement of Jennifer and Christian, but Ramsey is really pleased with Christian for all the help he gives to Jennifer. Christian escapes alive with the others. |
| Kevin Dillon |
Lucky Larry. Lucky Larry is a drunken gambler. He is in the nightclub when he helps Jennifer, Christian and Elena. He is disliked by the other main characters. When they approach the lobby where the lifts have collapsed, Larry is climbing across when an engine drops from the room above. The engine crushes the lift track with Larry on it, and the room burst into flames. |
| Freddy Rodriguez |
Valentine. Valentine is a waiter who initially came on the ship with Elena. Ramsey tells Valentine to come along with the others as a map. Whilst attempting to make it on the other side of the elevator shaft, the metal bench they were walking across falls. Valentine grabs onto Nelson, but Nelson kicks Valentine off (in which he later regrets) realising that he would die as well. Valentine gets crushed by the falling elevator and impaled by debris. |
| Jimmy Bennett |
Conor James is the son of Maggie and looks up to Dylan. Conor is sometimes separated from Maggie, but in the end, he is re-united with his mother. Conor survives with the group. |
| Andre Braugher |
Captain Michael Bradford. He is the captain of the ship and has a secret affair with Gloria. When the ship capsizes, he stays in the ballroom to help the injured passengers. He seals the bulkhead doors on the group who escape. He is killed along with hundreds of passengers in the ballroom when the windows break due to pressure. He is killed whilst holding the ship's singer Gloria. |
| Stacy Ferguson |
Gloria is the star act aboard on the SS Poseidon. She is killed when the windows break in the ballroom. She is last seen holding Captain Bradford. |
| Kirk B. R. Woller |
Chief Officer Reynolds. He is the chief officer and is on the bridge. He is killed during the initial contact with the wave, when the water breaks through the bridge windows. |
| Kelly McNair |
Emily is Conor's nanny. She is seen later dead in front of Maggie. |
| Gabriel Jarret |
First Officer Chapman. He is killed in the bridge with Reynolds. |
Soundtrack
Released on May 9, 2006, the soundtrack includes music composed by Klaus Badelt and songs performed by Fergie (who played Gloria) and Federico Aubele.
- Won't Let You Fall — Fergie
- Bailamos — Fergie
- Postales — Federico Aubele
- Be With You (Club Mix) — Mary J. Blige (Bonus track)
- The Poseidon
- The Wave
- A Map & A Plan
- Fire Dive
- Claustrophobia
- Drowning
- Don't Look Down
- Escape
Reception
With a reported $160 million budget, Poseidon received generally negative to mixed reviews, with a "Rotten" rating of 33% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 4.7/10 and a 50 out of 100 on Metacritic, which indicates "mixed or average reviews." It was also nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake or Ripoff. However, the film quickly gained popularity and was commended for its realistic use of CGI in the capsizing scenes[2] and was nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects.[3] (It lost to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.)
The film grossed a disappointing $22,155,410 on its opening weekend for an average of $6,232 from an ultrawide 3,555 locations, failing to knock Mission: Impossible III from the top of the box office (by sales).[4] Warner Brothers President and Chief Operating Officer Alan F. Horn called the results, "very, very disappointing." Poseidon went on to generate $60,674,817 in North America and $121,000,000 overseas, for a $181,674,817 worldwide total.[5]
The film holds a Guinness World Record for the most detailed CG model in a film. The exterior shots included 181,579 individual objects, including 382 cabins, 876 portholes, 73 towels, and 681 deck chairs, all created by digital-effects company Industrial Light & Magic.[citation needed]
DVD release
Poseidon was released to DVD August 22, 2006, in both single-disc and double-disc editions. The single-disc edition has a behind-the-scenes feature and theatrical trailer. The double-disc edition adds the documentaries Poseidon: Upside Down: A Unique Set Design Chronicle; A Shipmate's Diary, which covers a film school intern's experience on the set; and a History Channel documentary that explores rogue waves.[6] DVD sales for Poseidon were 1,183,187 units, for $19,665,430 in sales.[7] Poseidon has made $19,725,028 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $201,399,845.[8]
See also
References
- ^ "Poseidon". The Numbers. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/POSDN.php. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
- ^ "Pic rocks the Warners boat". Variety. May 21, 2006. http://www.variety.com/VR1117943708.html. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
- ^ "IMDb 2006 Oscar page". Internet Movie Database. http://imdb.com/features/rto/2007/oscars. Retrieved January 23, 2007.
- ^ "Poseidon sinks at US box office". Guardian Unlimited. May 15, 2006. http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1775152,00.html. Retrieved Sepptember 16, 2007.
- ^ "Poseidon". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=poseidon.htm. Retrieved September 16, 2007.
- ^ "Poseidon". DVD Active. http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/poseidon.html. Retrieved September 16, 2007.
- ^ "Poseidon DVD". The Numbers. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/POSDN-DVD.php. Retrieved September 10, 2008.
- ^ "Poseidon — DVD Sales". The Numbers. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/POSDN-DVD.php. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
External links
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Blechschaden (1971) · Strandgut (1972) · Anna und Totò (1972) · Jagdrevier (1973) · Nachtfrost (1973) · Smog (1973) · Van der Valk und die Reichen (1973) · Aufs Kreuz gelegt (1974) · Die Stadt im Tal (1975) · Kurzschluss (1975) · Hans im Glück (1976) · Vier gegen die Bank (1976) · Reifezeugnis (1977) · Planübung (1977) · Die Konsequenz (1977) · Schwarz und weiß wie Tage und Nächte (1978)
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Der Eine – der Andere (1967) · Die Rote Fahne (1968) · Ich nicht (1969) · Ich werde dich töten, Wolf (1971)
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