REVIEW DATE: 2/7/99

Submitted for your approval: a Dr. Psy Chosis. Movie buff, movie critic, unexpecting victim. While browsing through his local video store desperately searching for that one forgotten video gem among the "P" section. There he spots The Poseidon Adventure and eagerly picks it up, totally unaware of the doom that awaits him behind the simply warped video. For the doctor is about to embark on a strange journey beyond the bounds of his own mind, and into that strange place known as. . .the Twilight Zone.

Well. . .maybe that's a bit too far. This isn't a tail that wraps a message about the human condition in clever irony. It was bound to happen sometime. Batman and Robin can't be the worst movie ever made, can it?

Sadly, I've found the answer is "no".

That's right, kiddies. With The Poseidon Adventure I've stumbled right into a movie that could only hope to be as bad as Batman and Robin. I never thought I'd say that, but I never watched The Poseidon Adventure before.

It begins on a dark and stormy night. The S.S. Poseidon is sailing through the stormy seas of the Mediterranean when a tidal wave flips her over, leaving a bunch of surviving, annoying characters to wonder around the boat in a desperate attempt to climb up to the bottom of the ship (confused yet) before the entire thing sinks like a drunken Kennedy in a swimming pool.

You would think that, armed with a concept like this, Writer Wendell Mayes and Director Rongald Neame would give us something worth the 117 minuets of my life that I wasted watching this movie. Instead we are given a boring, tedious snore fest of a movie that might just be the ultimate cure for insomnia. This entire movie is based on watching its main characters crawl through dimly lit halls and yell at each other. Who is the idiot that though this was a good idea? Was it you, Neame?

But I suppose it isn't all their fault. No, I must throw some punches at the cast for creating the most annoying assortment of one dimensional characters in history. The only one worth his salt is a very young Gene Hackman as Reverend Frank Scott who is the only actor any of you might recognize. Strangely enough his acting seams to have improved as his hair has disappeared. He's the only actor in the cast who manages to give the illusion of depth to his underwritten part. Everyone else chews scenery and spouts annoying dialogue. They are just so bad they must be seen to be believed.

To make matters worse this is a disaster movie, and as such we must have some character we can identify with or it becomes pointless. Not even Hackman can manages to make this boring waste of film bearable because he is but one good actor in a sea of characters with all the depth of mud puttles and all the acting ability of lobotomized cats.

Is it the fault of the actors themselves, or the flaccid script? Who knows. Who cares. Bottom line you should avoid this movie like the plague. The acting sucks, the script sucks, the entire movie sucks. Run screaming from The Poseidon Adventure whenever you see it, for it is worse then Batman and Robin

RATING (OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE

BETWEEN THIS AND BATMAN AND ROBIN, CHOSE SUICIDE.

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