Poseiden: Adventure?

Forgettable but fun. That's pretty much the best way to describe Poseiden, which comes out this Friday. It's definitely one of those summer popcorn movies that people will show up to see the first weekend and then forget all about once the bigger blockbusters roll out in the next few weeks. As long as you don't go in expecting some serious substance to this movie you won't have any problem. The character development is short and to the point, enough so that when you reach the end of the film you probably won't remember half the names of the main characters, I know I didn't. Richard Dreyfuss' character was the main one that bothered me. He's an architect traveling from London and he's almost on the verge of suicide due to being spurned by a lover. It's just the fact that they randomly throw in the fact that he's gay, that doesn't make any sense. To me, this is the brainstorming session with the producers:

Producer1: What's big right now? What seem to be piqueing peoples interests?
Producer2: Did you see how much attention Brokeback Mountain got?
Producer1: Dammit...how can we incorporate a gay man into the movie.
Producer2: Well we could always just have him say he's gay, and pretty much leave it at that.
Producer1: Wouldn't people wonder why he was gay though?
Producer2: Wondering is attention...attention is good, get the script monkeys on the phone.

The story and plot didn't really have to be worked on much since this is just yet another in the long series of remakes that Hollywood seems to love right now. What did work for the movie though were the special effects. Not overdone, but with subtle images of the carnage taking place all around. There's definitely some great death scenes in the film and at some points it's hard to see how exactly they got away with a PG-13 rating. I'd definitely recommend the movie for a lazy matinee sometime, but don't go out of your way to see it.