Joeshill-0609 "BEYOND THE POISEIDON ADVENTURE" was actually anything,but a good follow-up to the 1972 movie! Irwin Allen had just moved to Warner Bros'Burbank location,after being at Twentieth Century Fox for some 14 years-and his direction to his hit disaster movie,which put him on the map as "The Master of Disaster" in the mid 1970s,just began to lose steam,and badly! and after seeing this movie,it was such a disappointment! i would've thought that Fox and Warners,who teamed up with "THE TOWERING INFERNO" in 1974,would've joined forces again-since the original movie was shot at Twentieth Century Fox,,but that wasn't the case! and after the huge failure of this 1979 production,despite it's impressive cast,Irwin Allen just landed on flop after flop,which was a cruel way to finish his master of disaster status,,he even tried to return to his "VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA" roots in 1978,with the CBS mini-series "THE RETURN OF CAPT.NEMO",which Warner Bros.Television produced,nor did "THE SWARM" do much Box Office damage in Summer 1978. overall,the bottom fell out for Irwin Allen,before his 1991 death,,but although he had a string of costly failures,his two major disaster movies in the mid 70s did quite well for themselves,and grossed plenty of big money! but much of "BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE" just reused stock footage clips from the 1972 movie,with great SPFX of L.B. Abbott's miniatures-that was about it!

ejonconrad Those too young to remember the 70s probably can't appreciate the significance of the "disaster movie" genre to moviegoers of that decade. The canon of this genre included "Airport", "Earthquake", "The Towering Inferno", and of course the original "Poseidon Adventure". These wowed audiences with big budgets and state of the (pre-CGI) art special effects, but at heart, the central disaster and exacerbating obstacles were really just a vehicle to drive the interaction of the all-star casts, resulting in pithy dialog, personal revelations, budding romance, and noble sacrifice. Because of the epic, apocalyptic nature of these movies, there was generally a solid sense of closure and finality at the end. This made sequels an even more dubious concept than usual for movies. There were two progressively worse sequels to "Airport", and this movie follows a similar pattern. It's characterized by a lower budget, lesser "stars", and a much more contrived plot than the venerable original.The contrast between the two movies is stark from the beginning. Whereas the first opens in the grand ballroom of a luxury cruise ships, this opens with Michael Cane piloting his teeny tugboat across the Atlantic through a the same storm that is capsizing the Poseidon not far away. I laughed out loud when the "waves" broke over the deck, clearly thrown from buckets just off camera. The storm causes him to lose his cargo, which consists of three crates lashed just behind the wheel house. Desperate for money, he stumbles onto the capsized Poseidon and decides to loot it under the "international laws of salvage". Luckily for him, after rescuing the surviving cast of the original movie, everyone else left, without making any attempt to recover anything from the ship or locate additional survivors. Simultaneously, another, nicer boat arrives, carrying Telly Sevalas and his sinister looking, white-clad crew. He claims to be be a doctor looking for survivors. If it's a "spoiler" to tell you he's lying, then you've never watched *any* movies.They all enter the boat and, yada yada yada, survivors, setbacks, revelation, romance, betrayal, sacrifice, pretty much everything on the checklist. Disaster movies are never particularly believable, but this one doesn't even try. It starts with the absurd premise that the original rescuers left after picking up just the folks who happened to be standing under the hole at the time, goes on to the fact all the lights are still on, and includes contrived obstacles and magic water that floods some decks above other decks which are dry. At one point, they're crawling through a ventilation shaft and not only is it inexplicably lighted, but the lights are *upright* on the upside down ship!Not to say the movie didn't have a few redeeming features. Michael Cane can usually elevate a role, and Sally Field was at the peak of her "spunky" period. There was an interesting pairing of Mark Harmon near the beginning of his career with Agnela Cartwright ("Lost in Space") near the end of hers.So, an interesting distraction for people of a certain age, but don't go out of your way to see it.

Paul Andrews 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.

stalzz64 4 Oscar winners, Karl Malden, Sally Field, Shirley Jones, Michael Caine. Great character actors Telly Savalas and Peter Boyle. 1 hour 54 minutes of sheer tedium, melodrama and horrible acting, a mess of a script, and a sinking feeling of GOOD LORD, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?Irwin Allen was just trying to cash in on the popularity of the original classic disaster film with a grade D minus script, the actors were obviously just in it for the paycheck as well,... the horror, the horror!How insane are the characters that Caine, Savalas, Malden and Field are playing? Go into a potentially deadly sinking ship that's 1. on fire 2. Hot from steam 3. Slippery from water and oil, 4. boilers that are exploding every 5 minutes, etc., all for the love of money? Greed? 5. They have very little equipment, not even a pair of gloves or work boots in sight, much less a grappling hook, rope, etc.Stupidity!What were they thinking?Peter Boyle overacts so much that I just wanted to smack him! Stop it! And what's the deal with the bad toupee? Also, there is no way you can believe his character was a WW2 veteran.Caine, Field and Malden find all that gold and money and they are happy--whoopee! We're rich! (We may not live to spend it, but hey...)And yee haw, it's the great character actor Slim Pickens!Survivors galore! Jack Warden and Shirley Knight, too!The final dramatic sub plot about that scary plutonium never really went anywhere, it's like they forgot, sort of? Lots of holes in the script.This film has an illness that the strongest pill couldn't cure. I'm surprised Alan J. Smithee's name wasn't on the script, I'd be embarrassed to have penned this one!Oh the insanity, Oh The humanity! Oy Vey!The Horror, The Horror!It's like a bad two hour TV movie.At least the sets were made from recycled material from the first movie.The script needed to be on the compost heap...