Poseidon

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

It's a buoyant, old-wave disaster pic for a generation of well-conditioned thrill seekers charmed by the revelation that Richard Dreyfuss really is the Red Buttons of our day.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Beyond being a showplace for crash-and-burn effects, Poseidon seems to be stumping for togetherness.

Empire Simon Braund

A shot in the arm for the classic disaster movie: awesome effects, nail-biting tension and a cast of characters we don’t want dead after half an hour - even, amazingly, the cute kid.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

You'll end up entertained if you forgive the cliches and let Petersen grab you with the visuals.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

As clumsy as the movie is in many ways, it strings together maybe a dozen situations in which we are absolutely, excruciatingly, on the edge of our seats -- which is to say that the new Poseidon essentially does its job.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The new cast is no match for the star-clustered original, but Lucas, who looks much like a young Paul Newman (you may think you're watching "The Towering Inferno"), has a strong, matinee-idol presence, and Russell is a reliable old hand at this sort of thing.

The New Yorker David Denby

An extremely well-crafted exercise in physical invention and fear. Yet within those limits--the limits of a pop-digital survival drama--Poseidon is an exciting show.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Petersen leaves out, largely, character, back story, anecdote and warm personal relations. Poseidon isn't cute, funny, warm, nice, inspirational or uplifting. It's about the incredible labor of survival in a world turned totally sociopathic in an instant.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Among the willing cast, only Jacinda Barrett and topliners Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss manage, just barely, to suggest a third dimension to the script's cursory character sketches. But that won't matter to audiences craving a disaster thrill ride.

Variety Brian Lowry

Thanks to its simple construction, Wolfgang Petersen's large-scale liner moves reasonably well, though anyone with the faintest memory of its 1972 predecessor will wonder where most of the plot went.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Poseidon is devoid of anything that might conjure up memories of the Winslet/DiCaprio coupling. Its straightforward action/adventure approach is both a strength and a weakness.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

By stripping the genre down to its essentials, long on the serial disasters but thankfully light on the stupid dialogue, [Petersen] not only maintains an acceptable modicum of suspense but -- here's the major bonus -- also manages to set a blissful speed record in the process, bringing his pricey blockbuster home to port in under 100 minutes.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

In the plus column, Poseidon is a tightly-paced action movie that doesn’t depend too much on special effects for its thrills.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The effects are terrific, from the two-and-a-half-minute opening sequence that tracks around the brilliantly lit liner from below, above and round about, to some amazing exterior shots of the groaning vessel rolling around in the churning sea like a giant, wounded whale.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

"Titanic" without the metaphors, the class-consciousness, the love story, or anything resembling a theme, Poseidon invests so little in its screenplay that it might as well be an episode of "The Love Boat" gone horribly awry.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Overall it's slick, brainless entertainment.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The movie is, in all senses, a big downer.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

An acceptably entertaining picture. At just 100 minutes long, it feels tight and trim, and unlike so many contemporary action pictures, it boasts only one ending, instead of three false ones. What's more, it's just as dumb as the original.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

After 9/11 and Katrina, this megabudget remake by Wolfgang Petersen benefits from a similar cultural oomph, though it's just as enjoyably silly as the original.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Exciting and nerve-racking in the moment, but empty.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Aside from a disturbingly graphic depiction of a drowning, there is also death by fire, electrocution and giant falling objects.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The special effects, with one painful exception, hold up beautifully. But the people have no personalities, the story is unconvincing, and the whole movie is as shallow as the puddle left on a flat roof by a 20-minute shower.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

There's nothing hip or ironic about Poseidon, which makes Russell and Lucas the perfect leading men.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Maybe it's the era we're living in, but the new film is as much fun as a shroud.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Pretty much pure boilerplate: a reasonably well-executed throwaway that, when you finally get around to seeing it in its proper setting, will make you glad you decided to travel by air instead of by sea.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

More than characters, dialogue and lighting, here Petersen is interested exclusively in suspense of the will-he-or-won't-he-be-crushed-by-that-falling-flaming-elevator variety.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There is nothing wrong with the performances. All of the actors are professionals, although none have as much fun as Shelley Winters, who is the actor everyone remembers from the 1972 movie.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

At least Poseidon takes care to dispatch the Black Eyed Peas' Stacy Ferguson who, as the shipboard entertainer, sings what may be the worst song ever written, reprised over the end credits.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Poseidon '06 is spectacularly noisy, uninteresting and character-free.

Premiere Jessica Letkemann

Isn't quite self-aware enough to be really funny, and certainly isn't serious or genuinely exciting enough to be thrilling because of it's action.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Poseidon is a sodden saga, with a script that is awash in clichés. It nearly drowns under the weight of its own soggy tedium.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

An utterly empty-skulled genre mechanism and nothing more.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

If this version had been called The Poseidon Adventure, audiences could have sued for truth in packaging.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A deeply dreadful movie -- no, a shallowly dreadful movie -- that's too unpleasant and repetitive to be entertaining, even as camp.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's all so much blood and brine signifying nothing, not even a good time. Now somebody do us all a favor and cut that albatross from around Petersen's neck already.

New York Post Kyle Smith

It's "Das Bomb." It's "The Perfunctory Storm."