That sinking feeling

Reviewed - Poseidon: GOOD heavens. A useless remake of a preposterous 1970s disaster movie which even the most determined nostalgia addict has trouble remembering without an ironic snigger. Did we really order this? They'll be disinterring The Omen next.

To be fair, Wolfgang Peterson, who dealt with equally briny subject matter in Das Boot and The Perfect Storm, has delivered a significantly more economical entertainment than Ronald Neame's The Poseidon Adventure. It is shorter, faster and features considerably fewer main characters. Within 15 minutes of the credits rolling the titular cruise ship has been struck by a great wave and violently upended.

While characters played by less famous actors await submersion in the ballroom, a knot of strangely well-qualified heroes makes its way upwards to the keel. "I'm an architect," Richard Dreyfuss announces when knowledge of structures is required. "I was a fireman," Kurt Russell declares as they encounter a blaze. It's a shame none of them trained as a screenwriter.

The preponderance of loose ends suggests that Poseidon's merciful brevity may result from ruthless, panicked cutting rather than any inclination towards narrative leanness. With the characters' personalities reduced to an adjective or two - Dreyfuss is gay, Josh Lucas is dissolute - the film develops into little more than a live-action version of Donkey Kong. Leap to this beam. Avoid this tumbling barrel.

Sadly, nothing as thrilling as a giant monkey greets the surviving heroes when they eventually reach the final level.