[REVIEW] The Poseidon Adventure

[rfmcdonald]

I caught the remake of the classic 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure on Citytv last Sunday. The original film, dealing with the struggle of the survivors of a capsized ocean liner to reach safety, was arguably powerful. The remake was weak. What struck me about the film was the way that it recast the issue at stake from a human response to a natural event to a human response to a human event. The Poseidon, we are told in dialogue, was built in such a way that it couldn't capsize on its own. It tipped over this time only because of an act of international terrorism. The entire movie was embedded in a dense network of human institutions and technologies, from the survivor who sent out an E-mail pleading for help to everyone on her Christmas list with her Blackberry's help to the British anti-terror liaison with the Fifth Fleet who redirected a geosynchronous satellite to scan for the ship. We're done with nature; we've only ourselves to fear.