ThiefHott Too much of everything

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

mark.waltz Yes, you've got a terrific cast here and the potential for a gripping thriller. Unfortunately, in spite of the presence of such legendary stars as Omar Sharif, Anthony Hopkins and Richard Harris, the film is an excruciating bore that seems to focus on explaining as to how this situation is being dealt with as opposed to showing much of the action in making that happen. A rather creepy voice makes several sinister sounding phone calls threatening a luxury liner with explosion in the middle of an ocean cruise. Sounding sort of like another doomed sea vessel on screen from just a few years ago, this misses characters you really want to see spared, and time with the passengers seems like a script afterthought. Attempts at humor fall flat and the mystery of who is threatening to blow up this ship and why isn't intriguing enough for the audience to care.There are moments when the film comes to a screeching halt, hitting empty air plot wise with a thud. Realizing an hour in to this lifeless bore that I wanted to see the whole thing speed up, I knew I'd be severely disappointed. There have been disaster films that were so bad that they become funny, but this doesn't even rank as a disastrous bomb. What it does end up being is one that wastes some fine actors pretending to be reciting intelligent dialog and dealing with a complex plot, but all it is turns out to be as exciting as trying to paddle a canoe through quicksand. Nowhere to go but down, and if the boat doesn't sink, you're basically stuck in muck not safe to try and escape from. For an hour and 20 minutes of needless exposition before anything else happens, by the time something does, it's pretty much too little, too late.

Matthew_Capitano Richard Harris gives a super performance, especially since there's no particular 'kiss-n-chase' factor to this film; Harris does it all in close-up and medium shots, and he's simply excellent the whole time.Goofy elements include a bomber's implausible dexterity to somehow smuggle 5(!) 50-gallon oil drums aboard a cruise-liner, all with an intricately manufactured explosive device contained inside... a wee bit hard to believe. And, of course, there's just no way in hell the vacationing buffoons on board the vessel can be taken off the ship without their being fed to the sharks. Omar Sharif is fine as a rather nervous sea captain, and playing the part of his mistress, Shirley Knight is absolutely ravishing, but have you seen her lately? She's a big fat pig (Here she comes now! Quick! Hide the cookies!).Very good film, good suspense, but several digressively flat periods intermittently slow things down to a guppy's pace. Still, highly recommended.

JasparLamarCrabb SPOILER ALERT! A so-so suspense yarn directed in the most restrained way, especially when you consider that the director is Richard Lester. Lester, usually the most imaginative film-maker, hands in what amounts to journeyman work. Richard Harris heads a large cast as a British navy man trying to defuse seven bombs planted on an ocean liner during a transatlantic trip. Harris cracks a lot of jokes and yells a lot at ship's captain Omar Sharif. It's all very tame and extremely well put together but nevertheless lacks punch. In addition to Harris & Sharif, the impressive cast includes Anthony Hopkins, David Hemmings, Ian Holm and Shirley Knight in the odd role of Sharif's shipboard mistress. Freddie Jones, Michael Hordern and Cyril Cusack appear briefly...one of them is a lunatic.

Poseidon-3 Released at the height of the disaster movie craze of the 1970's, this is more a suspense film than an all-star catastrophe epic. Sharif plays the stoic captain of an outdated cruise liner who is informed of seven bombs placed throughout the lower levels of the ship, which will explode in 24 hours unless a ransom is paid. While the police, the British government, the British navy and the management of the line scramble in London to find a solution and locate the extortionist, Harris (a demolitions expert) and his team are parachuted in to try to disarm the explosive devices. Meanwhile, seasick passengers battle fear and ennui as activities director Kinnear struggles to keep the mood cheerful. A truly staggering cast, made up of mostly British character actors, delivers interesting performances under the surprisingly taut and trim direction of Lester (who also infuses the film with his customary brand of subversive humor and perverse sense of the absurd.) Sharif has very little of note to do in his role other than act as a masthead and allow others to bounce off of him, but he looks nice in his Captain's gear. Harris has a very nice part and plays it well. Hemmings, as Harris' sidekick develops a likable persona. Hopkins effectively plays a police detective who has the added pressure of knowing his wife Mortimer and their two children are on board the threatened vessel! Holm is excellent as the harried manager of the cruise line. Knight has a dour, thankless role as a bored, restless, married passenger, but manages to inject some wryness into her line delivery. James scores a few points as a cut-the-bull passenger and Jones is a memorable blackmailing suspect. Cusack and Hordern appear without billing in small, but effective, roles. Visible briefly on deck is MacCorkindale as a helmsman. Lester placed the cast and extras upon a real life, down-on-its-luck cruise ship and sought out the worst possible weather, giving the film a sense of dreary verisimilitude that works in its favor. This is no slick Hollywood (or Irwin Allen-esquire) product but a cold, sometimes tense film with only some scattered humor to break the stress. Several sequences provide proper action and suspense, though the committed cast keeps everything pretty well grounded. Lester, who made quite a few comedic films is actually quite at home here, though the original author was unhappy enough with some of the changes Lester made to the script to have his name changed to an alias. He doesn't go for the sentimental (for example, there are no scenes of Hopkins and Mortimer crying on the phone together) nor does he dwell on the disaster elements. An explosion rocking a ballroom and setting off a sprinkler system is barely shown at all! He focuses instead on the mystery elements of the bomber and on the quest to disarm the bombs before the ship is destroyed. It's an unusual but mostly captivating piece of movie-making.