Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure starts in a ferocious storm as Captain Mike Turner (Michael Caine) sails the open Ocean on his way to Marseille in France in his tug boat Jenny, however his cargo falls overboard & is lost. The next day Turner sees a French coast guard helicopter & decide to investigate, Turner finds the capsized upside down luxury cruise liner the S. S. Poseidon. Captain Turner now has the salvage rights to the Poseidon & together with his friend Wilbur (Karl Malden) & plucky young lady Celeste (Sally Field) decide to board her, while doing so a yacht with several doctor's show up & Captain Stefan Svevo (Telly Salavas) claims they can help any injured passengers. Together they all venture inside the Poseidon but soon become trapped themselves as the ship continues to sink while certain people aren't who they seem & have ulterior motives for being on the Poseidon & will kill to keep the secret...Produced & directed by Irwin Allen this is the silly sequel to the classic disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure (1972) that has a very bad reputation but I will freely admit that I did actually quite enjoy Beyond the Poseidon Adventure despite it's absurdities. In a way Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is the opposite of the original, it's silly with bad dialogue & bland character's unlike the original which was a terrific piece of action drama with people you cared about & related to. At almost two hours long I was never bored by it, it entertained me & I was always interested in what was going to happen so at least I had fun with it. However the script is silly, the idea that Captain Turner (or anyone for that matter) would board a sinking ship & get trapped inside like the Poseidon is ridiculous & two people follow him aboard as well like they are going to the cinema or something mundane (& safe) like that. The script throws in the usual disaster film clichés like blocked doors, lots of bad luck which traps a group of people in a dangerous situation, fires, explosions & lots of water. While the character's in the original were great here they are bland, from a blind man to a guy & his daughter to some comedy relief woman who remains surprisingly cheerful despite the situation she finds herself in. Character exposition & background is bad with some really strange timing, while looking for a way out in a metal shaft Celeste decides to cry her eye's out while when people die there's no great emotional impact & none of the other character's seem that bothered so why should we be? The plot about terrorist Svevo doesn't really go anywhere & the murder mystery angle could have been played a little better but at least it's another odd part of a silly film. By the way, how long does it take three guy's to stack some boxes on a yacht? Overall I liked this film, it's silly & overblown & a bit camp & doesn't make much sense but it entertained me & that's all that matters really. The novel by Paul Gallico who gets a credit is actually completely different than the filmed version, in Gallico's novel the original survivors go back to the sinking Poseidon at gunpoint.Released theatrically in 1979 running nearly two hours (the British cinema version was slightly cut for bloody gunshot wounds) the US network TV version that premiered in 1981 contained an extra twenty two minutes of footage which i would have loved to have seen but only the theatrical version is available on DVD. The widescreen cinematography is great & I can't imagine how bad Beyond the Poseidon Adventure would have looked pan and scanned, the whole film has a lavish if slightly over produced look & I loved the upside down sets. There's some nice action & set-pieces too, from shoot-outs to flooded rooms to fiery dangers to underwater scuba diving. Some of the special effects are poor, the opening scene in the storm looks terrible as buckets of water are randomly thrown against the boat prop while the Poseidon exploding at the end also looks awful but would CGI been any better?Shot in California the production values are nice & Irwin Allen always knew how to put on a show even if he didn't know much about storytelling. The original The Poseidon Adventure started the whole disaster flick craze while Beyond the Poseidon Adventure arguably ended it. There's a fun cast here, Michael Caine is slumming it, Sally Field is a bit annoying, Slim Pickens is annoying while Telly Savalas is fun as the villain even though he puts in his James Bond bad guy performance.Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is a guilty pleasure, it's not a good film & when compared to how great the original is it's a bit insulting but I had a lot of fun with it & liked it. Make sure you get hold of the widescreen DVD, despite not having those deleted scenes on it the disc looks great.

Being stuck in bed with the flu and feeling too rough to get up to find the remote, I actually watched this abomination from start to finish (how many people can say that? And for any who can - what's your excuse?). My God, has there ever, EVER been such a total mess released by a major studio? There is not one second of genuine tension in a supposed "thriller"; the script is inept and ludicrous; the sets look like they were leftovers from a low-budget TV movie; and the cast ... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!!! Sally Field gives what is without doubt the worst and most embarrassing performance of any Academy Award winner in history. Her irritating nasal whine and stupidly perky behaviour in what is meant to be a life-threatening situation are truly asinine. It's a wonder she didn't use all her future earnings to buy up and destroy every print of this turkey. Michael Caine, who now pontificates endlessly on the art of screen acting - even running master classes for would-be thespians - should be taken out and shot (preferably by one of Telly Savalas' henchmen). Angela Cartwright, an actress I usually like (and whose name isn't even in the opening credits, poor soul), is ten years too old for her role, and her horrible matronly yellow prom dress must haunt her nightmares to this day. Slumming it are Karl Malden and Shirley Knight - hopefully they collected a big pay packet to assuage their involvement. The whole film is a series of bad scenes, but one that especially sticks in my mind is the explosion which results in the "ceiling" (if an upside-down ship's deck can be termed as such) collapsing and a load of empty cardboard boxes falling through! Ooh, how scary! Really, really, terrible.

###SPOILERS### With a realistic plot, emotional deaths, and lots of explosions, this is one of the best sequel movies ever.Hannah Merideth's death scene is almost identical to that of Acre's in the original, but has more emotion,like Lisolette Mueller's in The Towering Inferno.She dies falling off a ladder, and drowning, due to a cramped shoulder caused by pulling her husband up from a hunk of wreckage.Her and Suzzane's death are the most predictable-Veronica Hamel is not credited in the trailer, meaning it would be easy to kill her off-and Hannah is the one that everybody is hoping will escape-something that is used in EVERY disaster movie I have seen.The other "good guy" deaths, that of Frank, Wilbur and "Tex", are somewhat different. We don't see Wilbur die, and Frank and "Tex" are shot, the latter just as they make their escape.All things considered, this is a very brilliant movie.

This formula disaster movie from Irwin Allen (Towering inferno) concerns about the famous ship , previously winner of numerous Oscars and some former footage is sprinkled into the opening sequence . Later wreckage Poseidon during New year's eve , when a tidal wave overturns it , now Michael Caine is the captain of a crew (Sally Field,Karl Malden) which race each other commanded by Telly Savallas for obtaining reward and loot . After sea tragedy Poseidon centering on survivors from liner passenger and the rescuers of the shipboard .This mediocre sequel blends action , intrigue , gunshots , disaster spectacle , suspense and emotional byplay with romance included . Our heroes get stuck in the ship before it sinks . The protagonists spend most of their time devising grisly ways for avoid to die like the first part . The picture isn't bad but deeds better and more spectacularly filmed in ¨The Poseidon adventure¨ . The explosion , pyrotechnics , floods are spectacular but the film is just another usual Hollywood product . Succeeds only in wasting various talented actors , an all-star-cast formed by Michael Caine in a similar role Gene Hackman-alike , Jack Warden as a blind passenger , Slim Pickens as a habitual role , Peter Boyle as a zealous father of his daughter Angela Cartwhright enamored by Mark Harmon , besides appears Veronica Hamel , Shirley Knight , Shirley Jones...Lively score musical by Jerry Fielding and colorful cinematography by Joseph Biroc . It's an Irwin Allen's rehash of former disaster movie clichés that even the splendid casting cannot save . The picture is one of the last Allen's flops along with ¨Swarm¨ and ¨When the time ran out¨. Rating : Average but entertaining , it's a fairly watchable disaster movie .