On the surface, a movie like the Poseidon Adventure is almost impossible to screw up. Put a bunch of well known faces on the screen in a life or death situation and you should have something compelling and interesting. Sadly, this is not the case in this below average remake. That's because the script never developed the characters enough to allow us to empathize with or feel for them. The death of Mrs. Rosen is a prime example: in the original it made you cry, not only for her, but for her husband and Gene Hackman's Reverand Scott. Here, she was a widow who's only contribution was to udder silly reminisces about her dead husband Manny. Her death was like "Goodbye Mrs. Rosen, we hardly knew yee", as Rutger Haurer's character appears only mildy disturbed, as if her death is an unneeded distraction. Furthermore, the direction was unsuccessful in creating the suspense and sense of impending doom that dominated the original. There is no conflict or tension between the characters like in the first either, mainly because there is no definitive leader of the group akin to Reverand Scott. What it comes down to is you can't have a disaster movie where you can't relate to the characters and fully appreciate the danger they're in. That's what it's about. Any discussion of special effects and the plausibility of the plot is just ancillary.
