The 'Poseidon' remake: Nothing to flip over

One thing you can say about Poseidon, a remake of the 34-year-old Irwin Allen disaster flick: It wastes no time. Put the giant floating hotel to sea, introduce a few passengers, start popping corks in the ballroom (it's New Year's Eve), and - uh-oh, what's that sky-high wall of water heading straight for the ship?

Sooner than you can yelp "rogue wave!" - as it's dubbed by the Poseidon's captain, played with bloodied brow by Andre Braugher - a tidal behemoth flips the boat upside down. Disco and swimming pool, galleys and grand suites - from stern to prow, the grand vessel is glub-glubbing in H2O, as the enormous hull faces skyward and everybody who is still alive is crawling on the ceiling, squealing in horror.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the real-life disaster playing in New Orleans, some of the fun of seeing Hollywood stars sopping wet and in danger of drowning seems to have gone. And Poseidon, which has been directed by Wolfgang Petersen with the aid of vast armies (or navies) of computer imagists, has other issues to distract the theatergoer in the noble quest for brainless, entertaining fun.

Not to make too much of an issue of this, but it's curious that after emphasizing the ship's diverse population - from its African American captain to a Hispanic waiter (Freddy Rodríguez) to a cute Latina stowaway (Mía Maestro) - the last band of survivors is, well, a homogenous lot. Poseidon - The White Supremacy Cruise?

Anyway, the actors running and swimming for their lives in this mess of filmic flotsam and jetsam include Kurt Russell as a former New York City firefighter-turned-mayor; Emmy Rossum as his beautiful, overprotected daughter; Mike Vogel as her seriously devoted boyfriend; Richard Dreyfuss as a gay architect; Jacinda Barrett and Jimmy Bennett as a mother and her young son; and Josh Lucas (the poor man's Matthew McConaughey) as a midshipman-turned-cardsharp who knows a thing or two about ballast tanks and bulkheads, emergency exits and elevator shafts.

Peterson, who directed one of the greatest submarine movies ever made, Das Boot, moves things along at steady knots, aided by a mix of elaborate sets (a whole upside-down ballroom built on a soundstage) and credible CGI.

But there really isn't much suspense. Anyone who's seen a disaster movie knows that a few people we care about are going to die (along with a few that we don't care about) and a ragged bunch of hardy souls and lucky hangers-on are going to make it, against all odds.

And so, the experience becomes about process: How do the would-be survivors make their way through a multistory, upside-down maze that is flooding, on fire, and crumbling all around them?

There's nothing hip or ironic about Poseidon, which makes Russell and Lucas the perfect leading men: jut-jawed, macho, and able to keep a straight face while being pinned by fake beams, threatened by phony portholes about to burst, and held hostage by page upon page of sappy - not to mention soggy - dialogue.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.

Poseidon ** (out of four stars)

Produced by Wolfgang Petersen, Duncan Henderson, Mike Fleiss and Akiva Goldsman, directed by Petersen, written by Mark Protosevich, based on the novel by Paul Gallico, photography by John Seale, music by Klaus Badelt, distributed by Warner Bros.

Running time: 1 hour, 37 mins.

Robert Ramsey. . . Kurt Russell

Jennifer Ramsey. . . Emmy Rossum

Dylan Johns. . . Josh Lucas

Richard Nelson. . . Richard Dreyfuss

Maggie James. . . Jacinda Barrett

Parent's guide: PG-13 (disaster, drowning, death)

Playing at: area theaters