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Poseidon is a 2006 disaster film directed and co-produced by Wolfgang Petersen. It is the third film adaptation of Paul Gallico's novel The Poseidon Adventure, and a loose remake of the 1972 film of the same name. It stars Kurt Russell and Josh Lucas. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. in association with Virtual Studios. The film had a simultaneous release in the IMAX format. It was released on May 12, 2006, and nominated at the 79th Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects.[1]Poseidon grossed $181,674,817 at the worldwide box office on a budget of $160 million.
The MSPoseidon, a luxury ocean liner, is making a transatlantic crossing. Former New York City Mayor and FDNY firefighter Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell) is traveling with his daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum) and her boyfriend Christian (Mike Vogel) to New York, soon to be engaged. Also on board is former Navy submariner-turned-professional gambler Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas), architect Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss), Maggie James (Jacinda Barrett) and her son Conor (Jimmy Bennett), stowaway Elena (Mía Maestro), and waiter Valentin (Freddy Rodriguez).
As the passengers are celebrating a New Year's Eve party in the ship's ballroom, officers on the bridge see a huge rogue wave bearing down on the ship. To survive the wave, they try to turn the ship to take the wave bow-first. However, the ship does not turn fast enough. The wave swamps and capsizes the ship, killing the bridge officers. Chaos ensues across the ship, the passengers in the pool area throw through the glass and into the ocean, the atrium collapsing with passengers trapped in the elevators falling through the glass to the ceiling glass dome to their death, the stern engine crew through across, the maintenance corridors struck with a flash fire, killing any crew caught in it. Badly injured, Captain Bradford (Andre Braugher) tries to restore order and assures the remaining passengers that help is on the way, and that they should remain in the ballroom. Unconvinced, Dylan leads Conor, Maggie, Robert, Richard, and Valentin towards the bow, where he believes they will have the best chance of escaping from the capsized liner.
As they head up, they have to cross an elevator shaft. The 'bottom' of the shaft has steel spikes formed from the destroyed motor and debris from the previous elevator crash. Using a kitchen table, they find the door across jammed shut, Dylan finds the door above partially open. Valentine states to be the entertainment area they are heading to. As Dylan pulls Maggie, Connor, and Robert up, the elevator cab above them starts to loosen, the kitchen behind them starts to collapse. As Valentine prepares to cross, the elevator starts falling only to get stuck shaking the shaft, causing the table to tumble down onto the spikes. Valentine clings to Richard as Dylan tries to pull them up. Dylan sees the elevator begins to loosen again, he tells Richard to kick Valentine off him or everyone will die. Valentin falls and in impaled before being crushed by the elevator, causing the kitchen to explode. They reunite with Jennifer, Christian, Elena, and gambler Lucky Larry (Kevin Dillon), who had all been in the nightclub section of the ship and to find that they are the last remaining survivors out of all of the occupants in the nightclub. The group crosses a makeshift bridge across the lobby, where Lucky Larry gets crushed by the ships generator engine which break loose from its mounts and crashes into the ceiling dome. The pressure from the water finally cracks the ballroom windows, drowning and killing its occupants, including Captain Bradford and New Year's singer Gloria (Stacy Ferguson). With the water rising rapidly, the group is forced to escape through an air duct and end up entering a ballast tank with the only exit being a drainage portal. Only flooding the tank would they be able to get to the other side. As the group swims through the flooded and destroyed crew tunnels, Elena gets her dress caught in some loose wiring and accidentally hitting her head on a sharp piece of metal and drowns.
With the ship slowly sinking, the survivors soon find themselves in a crew lounge where they find the bow section is flooded showing the ship is sinking bow first until (due to instability with the ballasts still filling, damage, and overheating) the engine room in the back of the ship explodes causing the water in the ship to shift which lifts the bow out of the water. The group enters the bow thruster room and are horrified to find the thrusters still running. With their path blocked by the propellers, and knowing that the control room is submerged in water, Robert swims away to turn off the engine. He finds the 'shut off' switch to be broken, but presses the reverse button instead, before drowning. With the propellers now spinning in the other direction, Dylan throws a nitrogen tank into it, causing an explosion that destroys the engines and leaving an opening for them to escape through. The group jumps out the thruster and swim to a nearby inflatable raft, and as they are getting into the raft, the ship starts to right itself. As they are paddling away, the waves push the raft further and further away from the sinking liner. Across the water, the survivors look on as the stricken ship sinks stern-first into the Atlantic. After firing a flare, two helicopters and several ships arrive to rescue the six survivors, having tracked the location of the Poseidon's GPS beacon.
