Written by: Susan Granger
www.susangranger.com

If you've forgotten "Titanic" and considered going on a cruise, this tension-filled remake of Irwin Allen's disaster epic, "The Poseidon Adventure," based on Paul Gallico's novel, should make you think twice.

It's New Year's Eve and the party's in full swing on the Poseidon, a luxury liner that stands 20 stories high with 13 passenger decks and 800 staterooms. Suddenly from the depths of the North Atlantic, there's a 150-foot "rogue wave" that pitches the ship to port before it capsizes. Fire erupts. Water pours in. Panic ensues. So who will survive?

There's former fireman/ex-mayor of New York City Robert Ramsay (Kurt Russell) with his daughter (Emmy Rosen) and her fiancé (Mike Vogel); Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas), a professional gambler who's flirting with single mom Maggie James (Jacinda Barrett), traveling with her nine year-old son Conor (Jimmy Bennett); Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss), a suicidal gay architect; "Lucky" Larry (Kevin Dillon); a waiter (Freddy Rodriguez) who knows the ship's layout; and a pretty Latina stowaway (Mia Maestro).

Problem is: amid the chaos and confusion, all the heroics are performed by predictable heroes, not like the late, great Shelley Winters, as Belle Rosen, the brave ex-swimming champion who saved her shipmates in the original, or the priestly Gene Hackman.

Mark Protosevich's soggy screenplay is so shallow, formulaic and prosaic that the suspense depends entirely on the spectacular CGI effects, John Seale's cinematography and Wolfgang Petersen's crisp direction. Of course, Petersen knows his cinematic way around the briny deep since his "Das Boot" set a new level in nautical claustrophobic terror 25 years ago, followed by "The Perfect Storm."

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Poseidon" sinks with an exhausting, waterlogged 5. No big splash here.