Pop Culture Gems

Poseidon: "There's nothing fair about who lives and who dies."

Last night I was treated by a colleague to a pre-screening of Poseidon. As promised in the trailer, there was death, destruction, horrible dialogue and a whole bunch of white people. Below are a few of my thoughts.

N.B. While I have never seen the original The Poseidon Adventure, Adam, a contributor to this post, claims "There's got to be a morning after" is far superior to ferocious "Won't Let You Fall". However the fact that several people die from gruesome falls off of Richard Dreyfuss's legs (the first being premeditated homicide), actually provides added meaning to Fergie's lovely, busty rendition. The other obvious flaw in comparison to the spectacular original film is the lack of the sympathetic, rotund Shelley Winters.

Because I have never seen original film, my comments hold no comparison to The Poseidon Adventure and only reflect the campy joy that is Poseidon.

Best Death Scene: Marco Valentin

A close call between Valentin and the death of Lucky Larry but Valentin's death wins simply because it was directly caused by another character and not by the ship's random destruction/vengeance.

Marco Valentin, one of two minority characters in our band of heroes (both die, don't worry. This movie is a pure "follow-the-white-guy" kind of film), is the Hispanic waiter/porter/servant who the Heroes (Dylan Jones and Robert Ramsey) recruit as a map to get around the ship. As they begin their journey, the group encounters an elevator shaft complimented by a growing fireball over their heads preparing the jammed elevator to act as a giant projectile and a nice pointy shard of metal at the bottom, begging to impale someone. In an attempt to navigate across a service elevator shaft, Valentin slips and is forced to cling to Richard Nelson's legs (an older gay gentleman who precisely two minutes earlier was making eyes at him) to save his life. Our Heroes grab Richard's hands but the inevitable slipping of the fingers ensues as Valentin's weight drags both of them closer and closer to death. Upon our Hero's urging, Richard tries desperately to shake Valentin off and eventually is forced to kick the poor lad in the face. This frees our poor Valentine to plummet down the elevator shaft to the awaiting pointy shard of metal, complete with a squishy thud noise. Just to make sure our Latino friend is dead, Richard is pulled up into the doorway just in time to miss the fireball/elevator as it zooms down and crushes/incinerates tragic Mr.. Valentin.


Worst Death Scene: Elena Gonzalez

In keeping with the kill-the-Latinos theme, Elena was destined to die as soon as we met her on screen. Elena, a sympathetic if whiney character made it through the elevator shaft, up the air conditioning vent and through the first and second pressure valve only to get her skirt caught on a bunch of electrical wires while swimming and bump her head struggling to get untangled. Our dear old Richard, fresh from his responsibility in the death of Valentine, swims back to Elena's rescue and drags her limp body back to the group. 5 seconds of CPR and one or two shed tears, Elena's anti-climactic death scene was over and she was left to float away with the rest of the dead bodies on the boat. The moral of this story: While attempting to escape a massive catastrophe on a cruise ship with a group of people, make sure you stay as far away from the gay guy as possible.


Best Product Placement: Mountain Dew

As our group finds what they think is their only option of escape to be under water, they take a nice little rest in what looks like a staff lounge. Furniture and miscellaneous bodies strewn about, the group relaxes around a Mountain Dew vending machine, munching on potato chips and snacks as they ponder their impending and seemingly inevitable doom. This siesta is interrupted by a few explosions and the boat shifts, sending the furniture, snacks and even the vending machine hurtling around the room trying to smush our beloved heroes. Kudos to Mountain Dew for not only the product placement but also allowing their product to try to kill the main characters. Mmm, I'm thirsty.

posted by Kristin Marie @ 8:16 AM