POSEIDON (D)
Starring Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfus, Jacinda Barrett, Emmy Rossum, Mia Maestro, Mike Vogel, and Andre Braugher. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

When attending a summer blockbuster like Poseidon, we don’t expect to experience great cinema, but surely we should expect more than this. The dreadful, Mystery Science Theater-worthy Poseidon is awash in the most familiar of cliches. For instance, the characters are led by the Disapproving Father (Kurt Russell), who must learn to accept that his daughter is growing up, and the Fallen Hero (Josh Lucas), who “works better alone” but has the chance once again to save the day.

The film is barely ten minutes old before the action begins. Preceding that are a series of perfunctory scenes, sometimes just a handful of lines, that are meant to establish the film’s half dozen or so central characters. We learn that Elena (Mia Maestro) is a stowaway on her way to visit a sick brother. We learn that Richard (Richard Dreyfuss) has been left by his lover; the film informs us that he is gay by having him use the pronoun “he” repeatedly in one sentence, until audience members even in the cheap seats have gotten the point. None of the characters ever grow beyond their stock character types; you could summarize any one of their arcs in a single sentence, if you’re feeling generous with words.

After the ship capsizes, we’re told by the captain (Andre Braugher — poor Andre Braugher, who deserves so much better from a film) that they’ve been hit by a “rogue wave.” What causes a rogue wave? From who does he receive this information and how does he get it so fast? Surely most of the people in a position to see the wave would have been killed on impact, and anyone who survived that would logically be hampered by electrical outages and the fact that the ship is upside down!

I would work harder to answer these questions, but far be it from me to put more thought into the film than the screenwriter did. (His name is Mark Protosevich, and despite the fact that he penned The Cell, one of my favorite films of 2000, I recommend that he be censured by the Writers’ Guild of America.)

Then the escape. Characters line up behind Josh Lucas to maneuver their way from peril to peril in an attempt to escape through the underside of the ship. Along the way, characters die on cue, more or less in the order you’d expect them to. In the same routine way, other characters survive catastrophes that would kill Superman. Says Kurt Russell at one point, “There’s nothing fair about who lives or dies.” There’s nothing original or organic about it either. Certain characters die because characters like that always die in movies. And the characters who survive do so because characters like that always survive in the movies.

Nobody in the film says or does anything that hasn’t been said or done before. Even the sets and effects fail to excite, which is perhaps the bigger surprise about a $160 million film. Might I suggest a way to pass the time more quickly: Buy soft drinks from the concession stand and start a drinking game. Take a sip every time a character has a preposterously timed conversation, like the guy who inexplicably taunts a man he hardly knows about his divorce while they’re preparing to cross over a watery pit. Take a sip every time Josh Lucas swims heroically towards the camera. Take a sip whenever the film milks the obligatory child for cheap suspense. Take a sip whenever Elena shrieks in blind panic. After about twenty minutes, your bladder will be full, so retreat to the restroom to empty it. Now, stare into the toilet for the remaining 79 minutes. The view there is better.