Poseidon – 2006
This remake of the 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure was, in many ways superior to the original. However, was it different enough to make it necessary? Were the visual effects so much better that the film deserved to be remade? I’m not so sure. To say that it has all been done before seems at least partially, if not, mostly true. We’ve seen the ship being overturned, the extreme flooding, the fires, the daring underwater sequences, all in the film’s first iteration.
So what was it that set this remake apart from the 1972 version? Well, for one thing, they modernized the effects. The stunts were pretty much the same, but there were more realistic depictions of the death that such a monumental disaster would cause. We saw more drowned people, more burn victims, more injuries, more blood, more on-screen deaths. It had a grittier and more modern feel than the original. But that was to be expected.
However, aside from that, I don’t really see where it offered a whole lot more than its predecessor in terms of visual effects. Of course, I’ll admit that unlike the original version, this movie had the advantage of computer enhanced digital effects to offer the audience more exciting and dynamic shots of the destruction as it occurred. The capsizing of the ship could be seen in a little more detail than just a tilted camera, a set on a gimble, and a miniature model getting hit with a ton of water. But really, it was essentially the same thing.
The scene that took place in the main lobby of the cruise ship, where our main cast had to cross from one side of the grand hall to the other was pretty cool, though. When an unlikeable character is crossing the lobby on a fallen girder, one of the ship’s engines crash down from the lower deck of the overturned ship, killing him, and dumping fuel into the rising waters below. Of course, there is a spark that turns the pouring fuel into a column of fire that also burns on the surface of the flooding lobby. It was a pretty exciting scene to watch. The later flooding of the ballroom scene was pretty cool, too.
Another effect in the film that I didn’t even know was an effect until I watched a “behind the scenes” featurette on the DVD, took place in the beginning of the movie. There is a long, continuous shot that follows a man jogging around the ship. Apparently, the actor was shot entirely in front of green screens. The cruise ship, itself, was completely CGI. It was really pretty impressive, allowing the camera to show the man from unique angles in a long, unbroken shot. But was it a necessary shot? Not really. It, in itself, didn’t advance the plot in any way. I don’t think I would have noticed if the shot had contained a cut or two. But I guess the director had a vision of an unbroken shot, so the visual effects team gave it to him.