Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon, an expensive remake of the 1972 classic The Poseidon Adventure, is an uninspiring film with cardboard characters and banal dialogue.
Running at 100 minutes, it is short for a disaster movie. And we've only got 15 minutes before the waves strike to get to know the characters; Robert (Kurt Russell), a former fireman and ex-mayor of New York City, his daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum), her boyfriend Christian (Mike Vogel) and Dylan (Josh Lucas), a professional gambler.
Once the cruise ship Poseidon is hit, the story unfolds like a typical horror movie: people run for their life with a monster breathing down their neck.
This time, though, the monster is neither a masked serial killer nor a nasty extraterrestrial. It's the rising sea water in the capsized ship.
In one sequence, the characters - including a little boy - spend an unbelievable length of time underwater blowing bubbles and seeking escape routes with the skill of dive masters.
But having the characters spend time submerged is not necessarily bad for the movie, because most of the dialogue is dull. There are either gung-ho motivational speeches or solution-focused discussions about how to escape.