Poseidon

After the success of James Cameron’s Titanic, it was probably inevitable that someone would think to remake Irwin Allen’s 1972 chestnut The Poseidon Adventure, from Paul Gallico’s novel about a small band of survivors trying to thread their way out of a capsized luxury liner. As movies like this go, this one is simply as good as they get, making the original look like merely a half-decent first cut. (Actually, “half-decent” is putting it generously.) Mark Protosevich’s script supplies a whole new set of characters and dispenses with all the cornball exposition, getting right to the action in the first 15 minutes. In 1972, Ronald Neame directed with nondescript slackness, but here Wolfgang Petersen imbues the material with the tension and claustrophobic terror he brought to Das Boot 25 years ago.