shakercoola Michael Caine chews up the scenery in the first 10 mins as an opportunist salvage crew leader. It starts off very creakily with timing all over the place as the main characters fight to establish any sort of drama. Boarding the hull of the ship with Caine is Karl Malden and Sally Field, who assist with finding their riches, and so he can pay off his debts. It doesn't take long before they land on their fee. A ludicrous sub-plot emerges involving Telly Savalas, which adds some further tension, but the story then amounts to survival by way of slow movement from one topsy turvy film set-up to another. It is handled reasonably well with some good character actors of yesteryear but this is a substandard submergence rescue drama rather than epic disaster.

brefane While not the worst film ever made, there is after all 1973's Lost Horizon, this sequel to 1972's water and cardboard(character)epic is not a disaster film, but a disaster itself. Actually, there is no disaster here; it's a modern day pirate film. The original had five Oscar winners and no performances of any note while this has four Oscar winners and atrocious, unconvincing performances. Field in particular as would be comedy relief is embarrassing;the idiotic dialog would sink anyone, but she could have turned down the role. Directed by Irwin Allen, this is a tedious, uneventful, unimaginative waste of time with no purpose other than to hopefully cash in on the original's popularity. It doesn't even rise to the level of camp or so bad that it's good status which actually makes it less memorable and/or watchable than Ross Hunter's musical remake of Lost Horizon.

stalzz64 4 Oscar winners, Karl Malden, Sally Field, Shirley Jones, Michael Caine. Great character actors Telly Savalas and Peter Boyle. 1 hour 54 minutes of sheer tedium, melodrama and horrible acting, a mess of a script, and a sinking feeling of GOOD LORD, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?Irwin Allen was just trying to cash in on the popularity of the original classic disaster film with a grade D minus script, the actors were obviously just in it for the paycheck as well,... the horror, the horror!How insane are the characters that Caine, Savalas, Malden and Field are playing? Go into a potentially deadly sinking ship that's 1. on fire 2. Hot from steam 3. Slippery from water and oil, 4. boilers that are exploding every 5 minutes, etc., all for the love of money? Greed? 5. They have very little equipment, not even a pair of gloves or work boots in sight, much less a grappling hook, rope, etc.Stupidity!What were they thinking?Peter Boyle overacts so much that I just wanted to smack him! Stop it! And what's the deal with the bad toupee? Also, there is no way you can believe his character was a WW2 veteran.Caine, Field and Malden find all that gold and money and they are happy--whoopee! We're rich! (We may not live to spend it, but hey...)And yee haw, it's the great character actor Slim Pickens!Survivors galore! Jack Warden and Shirley Knight, too!The final dramatic sub plot about that scary plutonium never really went anywhere, it's like they forgot, sort of? Lots of holes in the script.This film has an illness that the strongest pill couldn't cure. I'm surprised Alan J. Smithee's name wasn't on the script, I'd be embarrassed to have penned this one!Oh the insanity, Oh The humanity! Oy Vey!The Horror, The Horror!It's like a bad two hour TV movie.At least the sets were made from recycled material from the first movie.The script needed to be on the compost heap...

Robert W. The Poseidon Adventure is one of the greatest films I had ever seen and I didn't see it at all until recently so imagine my shock and near excitement when I discovered that a sequel had been made. I mean typically speaking this is not the type of film that would have a sequel so I thought it would be gutsy of them to try and make one and whether or not it would make any sense to the original. Remarkably co-creator and producer decided to helm the sequel, Mr. Irwin Allen who of course was no stranger to epic disaster flicks or action films but I think part of the problem with this sequel was that it was rushed. That being said...the concept of the film is actually quite brilliant!! The film takes place DURING the storm that capsizes the Poseidon on a small fishing boat nearby. When the Captain spots a rescue helicopter (presumably the same one carrying Poseidon Survivors from the original) he realizes a ship must be in trouble and therefore available for salvage. Enter a cast of characters including a fake medical team desperately seeking a bomb aboard the capsized ship, and several survivors left behind inside the ship.Part of the problem is the enormous cast and lack of character arc to any of them. The original had a big cast but the characters were so brilliantly written and you became completely enthralled with each one of them and that can't happen with the sequel despite some good actors. Michael Caine, now a legend of course, plays Captain Mike Turner. He is determined, stubborn, a little mean but at heart a hero wanting to save everyone. He desperately attempts to channel a little Gene Hackman but character is mostly vapid. However out of everyone he probably has the best character and does a decent job with what he is given. Sally Field plays young and eager Celeste Whitman and she almost becomes endearing but mostly you find her annoying. The romance between her and the Captain is forced and never really takes off and the chemistry between her and Caine is average at best. Telly Savalas is downright boring as the fake Doctor who wants to recover his package from inside the hull. Savalas looks menacing enough...I mean he's Telly Savalas but he's just far too together and average and calm to ever be anything great in this film. Peter Boyle is Frank Mazzetti who is trying his best to channel the great Ernest Borgnine's character from the original. Mazzetti is desperate to find his daughter whom they shockingly find very quickly into the film. Boyle and Caine don't have near the chemistry that existed between Hackman and Borgnine's characters but they try. Jack Warden and Shirley Knight are the elderly couple, Shirley Jones as the nurse, Slim Pickens as the faux rich oil baron, Angela Cartwright as the daughter of Mazzetti and Mark Harmon as her savior and newfound love. All these cast members and they are all...every last one of them average at best. You don't get to know or care about any of them and if anything happens to any of them you just don't care.The plot although wrought with different action scenes including a gun fight, a murder, and water pouring in and repeated explosions from the ship much like the first one keeps the action going at a watchable pace. The film is god-awful but it is made for TV content on a movie budget with a rushed script and no thought to making sure at least a small portion of the original magic existed. I give them kudos for coming up with a sequel to a disaster film...especially the Granddaddy of them all but this one falls flat because of some major errors in judgment. Still if you love the original like I did it's not a bad trip back to the doomed boat. It was better than the Made For TV remake of the original!! 6/10