Common Sense Note
Parents should know that kids will hear be exposed to some violent and scary situations. Bodies are flung like confetti in the wake of a tidal wave; some bloody injuries and many deaths result.
There are frequent sprinklings of moderately salty language and a reference to a passenger's former career as a prostitute. But the film also emphasizes strength of character, determination, courage and ingenuity in the face of calamity, too.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Scott G. Mignola
After a luxury cruise ship capsizes en route from New York to Athens, a handful of desperate survivors work against time for a slim chance at rescue. An all-star cast led by Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine fires up this occasionally stilted 1972 Irwin Allen classic. If you thought James Cameron's Titanic was too smarmy, hop aboard.
Shortly after midnight on New Year's Day, with confetti still raining down over the ballroom, the topheavy luxury cruiser S.S. Titanic encounters a 90-foot tidal wave and goes belly-up. The survivors divide into two groups: those who will remain where they are and await help, and those who follow impassioned Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) as he forges upward toward what is now the bottom of the ship, and their best chance for rescue.
The dwindling group meets its share of catastrophic obstacles -- from explosions and flooding passages to their own crippling fear and uncertainty -- as the water rises higher in the sinking ship, cutting off all but one route of escape, and cutting their time short.
There are more familiar faces in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE than you'd find on a Love Boat reunion cruise: Roddy McDowall, sans chimpanzee suit; Oscar nominee Shelley Winters, who gained 35 pounds for her role; Leslie Nielsen as the stony-faced captain, before he made a second career out of parodying himself in Airplane and other disaster spoofs.
The characters themselves are a bit silly, but they all react realistically under duress. They sweat and yell at each other, and their clothes get messy. Gene Hackman binds the cast together as the fiery reverend who preaches that strength comes not from God, but from within. He proves his point.
Part of what makes the movie so effective is the novelty of seeing people trapped in a world literally turned upside-down, where barber chairs and toilets dangle eerily from the ceiling, where a giant artificial Christmas tree becomes a ladder to a higher deck that was once underneath. Adults who saw it in 1972 will find it still gripping, but not too intense for young teens. The blood is modest, and the cameras don't linger unduly on the dead.
Skip the flimsy sequel, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, in favor of The Towering Inferno, another all-star disaster movie from Irwin Allen.
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Sexual ContentReference to a passenger's former career as a prostitute. |
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ViolenceBodies are flung like confetti in the wake of a tidal wave; some bloody injuries and many deaths result. |
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LanguageFrequent sprinklings of moderately salty language. |
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