Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
How not the end the capsizing ship's adventure...
Genre: Disaster Action Adventure Directed by: Irwin Allen Produced by: Irwin Allen Written by: Nelson Gidding Based on: The Poseidon Adventure 1969 novel by Paul Gallico Beyond the Poseidon Adventure 1978 novel by Paul Gallico Starring: Michael Caine Sally Field Telly Savalas Peter Boyle Jack Warden Shirley Knight Slim Pickens Angela Cartwright Mark Harmon Shirley Jones Karl Malden Veronica Hamel Paul Picerni Cinematography: Joseph Biroc Editing: Bill Brame Music by: Jerry Fielding Distributed by: Warner Bros. Release date: May 25, 1979 Runtime: 114 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $10 million Box office: $2.1 million Franchise: The Poseidon Adventure Prequel: The Poseidon Adventure

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (or fully known as Irwin Allen's Production of - Beyond the Poseidon Adventure) is a 1979 American action-adventure disaster film and a sequel to The Poseidon Adventure (1972) directed by Irwin Allen and starring Michael Caine and Sally Field. The film was released on May 18, 1979, just ten months after the release of Irwin Allen's The Swarm by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was both a critical and box office failure.

Plot

Not long after the events of the first film, a rescue team is sent to the site, while many passengers are still on-board waiting to be rescued, two rivaling salvage parties enter the ship on search for money, gold, and a small amount of plutonium.

Why It Sucks Beyond This Aventure

1. It barely improves anything from The Swarm, instead, it fails to improve anything from Allen's previous disaster film. Not only that, Irwin Allen still sucks at being a director like he did with the previous film and this film made it worse.
2. It tries very hard to conclude this chapter of the Poseidon stories, but it fails to do so leaving the film into an unsatisfying conclusion of the two-part Poseidon series.
3. None of the newer characters are likable nor did they serve any charm or charisma from the first film.
4. A bizarre and poorly written story that clears things out a little.
5. Terrible acting from a majority of the cast.
6. It creates numerous confusing plot holes and continuity errors:
   • In the original, the helicopter rescuing survivors is a Sikorsky S-55 variant but this helicopter becomes a Sikorsky S-61 variant in the sequel.
   • The tugboat Jenny and the Poseidon are portrayed as fighting the same massive storm in the Mediterranean at the beginning of the film. However, whereas the Poseidon was capsized by a huge rogue wave, Jenny encounters no such wave.
   • Only 50 metres (approximately) of the hull of the Poseidon remains above water when boarded by the salvage/medical team because the front of the ship is sinking lower and lower into the water. Yet all the decks inside the ship are horizontal. For the decks to be horizontal, the ship would have to be sitting level in the water.
   • The biggest anachronism error of all, the Poseidon's cargo hold we see three vehicles that were appeared that were built in the mid-1970s in 1972, which is an anachronism; a 1975 Jeep CJ-5, a 1975 Triumph Spitfire, and a 1977 AMC Gremlin. The Poseidon capsized in 1972, three years before the oldest of these cars were built. This begs the question: "How there are new vehicles in the mid-1970s in 1972 if they weren't built and existed in the first place?!".
7. The trailer, TV spots, and posters are very predictable, which basically doomed the film already. These reasons are probably why the film flopped.
   • The poster, trailers, and the TV spots showing the capsized Poseidon getting destroyed by a huge explosion directly spoils the ending of the film.
8. Lots of slow padding that makes the movie feel longer than it actually is.
9. The movie can't decide which genres the film is going for whether it is a disaster adventure that takes place on a capsized ship or a war film. Even the third act doesn't even know what type of genre it is. In the third act, it got turned into a short war film before the survivors struggled to get away from the bad guys.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The idea of showing the sinking of the Poseidon completely in the film is pretty good since it was never shown in the first film.
2. The concept of going back into the still capsizing Poseidon is also original, although it is poorly executed.
3. It's not a rehash of the first film even if it follows the same structure of the previous film.
4. Decent soundtrack that was composed by Jerry Fielding.

Reception

Critical response

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure was heavily panned by critics, and audiences alike upon its release, and is considered to be the worst-reviewed Irwin Allen film of all time. The film currently holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 8 reviews with an average rating of 3.50/10. On Metacritic, it has a 22/100 based on 6 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, while Gene Siskel gave the film one star out of four and slammed it as "virtually the same story as the original disaster film," with "shoddily painted sets; tiny studio-created fires all of the same size; and dialog that could be written by a 1st-grader."

Trivia

• After this movie was released, Angela Cartwright (Theresa Mazzetti) was quoted as saying, "I was disappointed in certain aspects of the film, and in hindsight, I realize it was really a film about water, fire, and stunts."

External Links

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure at the Internet Movie Database

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure on Rotten Tomatoes

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure on Metacritic

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure on Letterboxd

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