User Reviews

it took awhile for me to get into this movie.but somewhere along the line,i actually started to enjoy myself.once you get around the wafer thin plot,it's not half bad.the trick with this movie is to not take it too seriously.for instance,as soon as the bad guys show up,you know they're bad long before they reveal their intentions.the only other thing they could have done to telegraph they were bad would have been to have been for them each to have a neon sign over their heads saying villain.it's that absurd.and there's some cringe worthy dialogue.however,the are some very witty one liners mostly courtesy of Sally Field,and their was an interesting,and(mostly)likable mix of characters.there were actually even a few exciting moments.of course,there are endless explosions.this movie doesn't hold a candle to the original Poseidon Adventure.it was actually fairly pointless,when you think about.but it was fun,and actually quite entertaining.for me,Beyond the Poseidon adventure is a solid 5/10

This formula disaster movie from Irwin Allen (Towering inferno) concerns about the famous ship , previously winner of numerous Oscars and some former footage is sprinkled into the opening sequence . Later wreckage Poseidon during New year's eve , when a tidal wave overturns it , now Michael Caine is the captain of a crew (Sally Field,Karl Malden) which race each other commanded by Telly Savallas for obtaining reward and loot . After sea tragedy Poseidon centering on survivors from liner passenger and the rescuers of the shipboard .

This mediocre sequel blends action , intrigue , gunshots , disaster spectacle , suspense and emotional byplay with romance included . Our heroes get stuck in the ship before it sinks . The protagonists spend most of their time devising grisly ways for avoid to die like the first part . The picture isn't bad but deeds better and more spectacularly filmed in ¨The Poseidon adventure¨ . The explosion , pyrotechnics , floods are spectacular but the film is just another usual Hollywood product . Succeeds only in wasting various talented actors , an all-star-cast formed by Michael Caine in a similar role Gene Hackman-alike , Jack Warden as a blind passenger , Slim Pickens as a habitual role , Peter Boyle as a zealous father of his daughter Angela Cartwhright enamored by Mark Harmon , besides appears Veronica Hamel , Shirley Knight , Shirley Jones...Lively score musical by Jerry Fielding and colorful cinematography by Joseph Biroc . It's an Irwin Allen's rehash of former disaster movie clichés that even the splendid casting cannot save . The picture is one of the last Allen's flops along with ¨Swarm¨ and ¨When the time ran out¨. Rating : Average but entertaining , it's a fairly watchable disaster movie .

This horrifyingly bad and automatically inferior sequel to "The Poseidon Adventure" came and went in theaters so quickly that one could be forgiven for not even realizing that it ever existed! The real victim here was Paul Gallico, the author of the original story. When "PA" was made into a film, the writers changed several things around (as often happens). When plans of a sequel came about, Gallico wrote the sequel to the novel based NOT on his own great little book, but on the FILM's storyline. Then the filmmakers discarded his novel "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" and went with the version found here. So he adjusted his characters and story to fit Hollywood's version, only to have it abandoned in favor of this rehash. In it, two disparate groups join up to either salvage loot from the overturned vessel or rescue any leftover survivors. Instantly they are trapped as the boat belches and rocks continuously, yet they stay inside to find salvage, linger over conversations with newly discovered passengers and finally run around shooting at each other! The inexplicable cleanliness of the sets and utter illogic of the storyline pale in comparison to the hilariously bad dialogue and the banal music score. Previous, greater disaster movies had majestic scores done by excellent composers. This music has no memorable opening theme and features inappropriate and discordant music during scenes (often a whimsical "Flight of the Bumblebee" type of thing is heard.) Some of the dialogue has to be heard to be believed. One classic scene is when Knight dislocates her shoulder after grappling to save her blind husband Warden. Award-magnet Knight does a terrific job of displaying her injury and is carried over to a corner and revived realistically with smelling salts. Then purportedly-kind nurse Jones reveals an utter lack of bedside manner. Does she resort to the standard "You'll only feel a slight prick" or "This won't hurt a bit"??? Nooooo She grabs Ms. Knight's arm and goes, "This is going to hurt a great deal Mrs. Meredith, I'm so sorry!" Apparently, the violence of this scene was so intense that it had to be filmed through debris (fully obscuring Jones' face!) so as not to shock the audience! The characters are unwaveringly pathetic and annoying (and in many cases, just thinly disguised versions of folks from the original film.) Boyle is mercilessly loud and obnoxious, taking Ernest Borgnine's "type" to a new level of irritation. Cartwright is a little old to be playing the little girl sort of role that Pamela Sue Martin already did. Her costume makes her look like a frump. Pickens is hilarious, drawling out lines like, "Who's Svevo? As a matter of fact, who's Suzanne?" in a thick Texas accent. Jones' character is a drippy nurse and has to dredge up her own long-ago award just like Shelley Winters' swimming medal, to no good effect. Warden and Malden vie for audience sympathy with their afflictions, but don't get any. Field rubs immediate tarnish on her Oscar for "Norma Rae" with her over-the-top, "Three's Company" - level comedic attempts and Caine should have known better, but this was his period of making bomb after bomb. Still, it's fun on a camp level to watch once and future Oscar-winners slumming badly. Hamel, for the brief time she is on screen, is both alluring and amusing. Sadly, this and "When Time Ran Out" would slam the lid on any hopes of a film career, but she rebounded on television. Knight adds some much needed class, desperately trying to underact and say her lines with dignity amidst all the squalid overacting and preposterous situations. She is done no favors for this. Sadly, the old VHS and now the newly released DVD shear 8 minutes off the film's running time, cutting a lot of Warden, Knight and Jones' scenes, even removing the fact that Warden and Knight are authors! These were sentimental moments between all three and must have been spliced out in order to keep the action, such as it is, moving. It's a pointless, grave-robbing hack job intended to wring more money out of the classic original, but which sank like a stone at the box office. At least now it can be enjoyed for the audacious mess that it is!

Pointless sequel to "The Poseidon Adventure" that came out 7 YEARS after the original! It opens shortly after the survivors of the original are rescued and flown away. Then a small salvage crew (Michael Caine, Karl Malden and Sally Field) arrives to get what jewels and money they can get from the boat before it totally sinks. Then ANOTHER boat shows up headed by a doctor (Telly Savalas) to find and help any more survivors. So they all head into the ship. They find MORE survivors but their way out is blocked off and they have to find a way out.

Pointless and stupid full of HUGE plot holes (it is never explained what Savalas wants and why) and stock characters. The puzzling thing is they got talented actors to play these one-dimensional roles. There's Peter Boyle (with hair) playing a angry father, his young daughter (Angela Cartwright) and a man who saved her (Mark Harmon). Then there's a married couple (Shirley Knight and Jack Weston) who needs help...but he's blind. Then there's Shirley Jones as a nurse. Next up is a "humorous" drunk played by Slim Pickens. Last is Veronica Hammel who barely figures in this.

Field plays the "comic" relief but some of her lines are downright painful. The situations are dull and the action sequences are just rehashes from the first film. There's a HUGE amount of things that make little sense (good luck trying to figure out what happened between Hammil and Savalas) and it gets frustrating. The acting varies. The whole cast tries but the characters are drab and the dialogue is terrible. Savalas is easily the worst actor here. Caine is the best. But, all in all, a dull pointless movie. Avoid.

While not the worst film ever made, there is after all 1973's Lost Horizon, this sequel to 1972's water and cardboard(character)epic is not a disaster film, but a disaster itself. Actually, there is no disaster here; it's a modern day pirate film. The original had five Oscar winners and no performances of any note while this has four Oscar winners and atrocious, unconvincing performances. Field in particular as would be comedy relief is embarrassing;the idiotic dialog would sink anyone, but she could have turned down the role. Directed by Irwin Allen, this is a tedious, uneventful, unimaginative waste of time with no purpose other than to hopefully cash in on the original's popularity. It doesn't even rise to the level of camp or so bad that it's good status which actually makes it less memorable and/or watchable than Ross Hunter's musical remake of Lost Horizon.

During the 60s and 70s, producer-director Irwin Allen had a long string of successes, both on television and the big screen--including such hits as "The Time Tunnel", "Voyage to the Bottom of the Seas", "The Towering Inferno" as well as "The Poseidon Adventure". However, by the late 70s, Allen's long string of successes had come to an end, and his last three theatrical releases were box office bombs. "The Swarm", "When Time Ran Out" and, "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" all failed at the box office....after which Allen had very few offers to make films and he was eventually forced to retire. The public seemed to have grown tired of his big-budget spectacles and disaster movies. So is "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" really that bad...bad enough to help end Allen's career?

I saw "The Poseidon Adventure" in the theater as a kid and watched it again a couple years ago. Despite a silly premise, I found the film to be enjoyable nonsense....and scored it a 6. The film ended with a group of survivors finding their way to freedom from the capsized ship. With "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure", it begins shortly after that....as the boat is still floating upside down and with a hole cut in the hole from which they freed the group of survivors. Here, a couple guys who are in financial strai ts (Michael Caine and Karl Malden) decide to use their small boat to tie up along side the stricken Poseidon in order to salvage when they can from her. Joining them are an annoying woman (Sally Field...who often spouts one-liners like she's appearing at a comedy club) and a rescue boat captained by Dr. Svevo (Telly Savalas). Unfortunately, shortly after they enter the boat, there's an explosion and they are stuck inside...and soon they meet up with other survivors who were passengers on this ocean liner.

While I don't think that audiences were demanding a sequel to "The Poseidon Adventure", I do think the film MIGHT have worked....had the writing been good and had it come out shortly after the original film...which it didn't. It wouldn't have been a masterpiece, but it could have been an enjoyable time-passer. However, "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" didn't work simply because the writing and some of the acting was just bad. The worst, and I mention it above, was Sally Field's character. I don't think I'd blame her entirely, as she is a multiple Oscar-winner...so she can act. But her character is simply annoying AND about as realistic as the Easter Bunny. After all, why would she spend the entire film talking like she's on a sitcom?? The problem with much of the rest of the cast is that many of the characters were woefully underwritten...more caricatures than real people. Tex (Slim Pickens) is a great example as well as all the folks who yell at each other inexplicably....YES, I am particularly talking about Peter Boyle...who just seems angry and nasty for no reason. There also are some dopey and confusing parts of the film...such as why there's 18th century gold coins and tons of paper money aboard the ship. Because of this writing, the film really isn't very good. Overall, a somewhat lavish (though not by Irwin Allen standards) and incredibly poorly written epic that most likely will leave you disappointed.

By the way, in the case of Michael Caine, while he's just fine in the film you might wonder WHY he appeared in the film since he's a rather well respected actor. Well, Caine himself explained when he his choice of roles in films (particularly in the late 70s and early 80s): "First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent". Clearly this was a film to pay the rent!

Another by the way. If a group of passengers were rescued at the end of the first movie, what are the odds that no other rescue ships would be there at the beginning and end of the second movie...especially because a lot of time has passed?? After all, I am sure the initial rescuers in the helicopter didn't say "Well, these obviously are the only survivors...let's call it a day and tell all the rescue boats to stay home" after they saved the folks from the first film. Surely there would have been MANY ships there looking for more survivors!!! This rather makes the dumb script even dumber if you watch the story.

A lot of people don't like this picture, but, I think it works. It is helmed by a strong cast of principle performers and carried off by a unique twist on the sequel impetus. The idea is fairly original, as opposed to the usual: for this story, one would normally expect they'd just focus on another group of survivors and how they get out. Instead of dealing with people wanting to get out, the plot is spurred on by people wanting to get IN. Then, ironically, they become trapped and become the people who have to get out, along with some of those aforementioned survivors to keep with tradition. I also have to give the film credit for that little bits of continuity, like Linda's body is still lying near the entrance of the ship the crew uses, the same hole the original movie's survivors escaped from. In the end, the movie isn't as bad as it is often called.

My Take: Formulaic disaster movie, but has its moments with its well-known cast. Otherwise, a pretty weak disaster movie.

This sequel is not as good as its hit predecessor "The Poseidon Adventure" was, but easily passable, depending on the yardstick you measure it with. I really like Irwin Allen's production films. They really show a great and realistic disaster and a great well-known cast. This elements would set the pattern to today's disaster hit films. Many bad things has been said about this failed sequel to the 1972 classic, so I guess this is quite a guilty pleasure to me. It's hardly a good movie, in fact its quite a mess upon further observation (plot holes, needless back stories, and one character is disposed of without explanation), but I did kinda enjoyed it on a "it wasn't the complete disaster" way.

The film resembles a little like the original disaster was. But I think it was meant to be that way. Anyway, most of the cast die heroically. Michael Caine gives a fine performance, but I really liked Sally Field here. She really gives a spunky performance. Field's character is the one Caine's character likes to call "monkey", but she turns out to be his love interest in the film. Telly Savalas makes a really good villain as Dr. Svevo. Jack Warden and Shirley Knight are fine as the couple who never seems to lose hope for each other. The other cast includes Karl Malden, Shirley Jones and Peter Boyle, do their best without being too embarrassing. But Slim Pickens is quite weird in his role as a Texan drunk, who never seems to let go of his priceless bottle through the entire film.

Overall, I kinda liked "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure", though I think a large amount of suspension of disbelief is required. Non-disaster buffs won't dig it, but for nostalgia, fans of the original may want to check it out. It wasn't as good as that film, but along with THE SWARM, it's kind of a guilty pleasure.

Rating: ** out of 5.

"Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" is Irwin Allen's follow-up to his excellent 1972 box office smash "The Poseidon Adventure". However, this one doesn't come close to matching the danger and excitement of the original. In fact, I found myself laughing most of the time at the absurdity of it all. Michael Caine reteamed with Allen after "The Swarm" for this soggy sequel about two salvage crews (one good, one bad) that race each other to probe the upside-down wreck of the luxury liner Poseidon, which as you'd recall got turned over by a 90-foot tidal wave in the first film. The usual all-star cast is here, but this time around a brand new cast comes on board. Most of them make total fools of themselves. Caine takes over for Gene Hackman as the one who barks orders at everyone (instead of a reverend, Caine plays a tugboat captain). Sally Field embarrasses herself as Caine's sidekick (Field has said that this is the worst movie she's ever made and on the basis of her performance here, she's right). Peter Boyle (TV's "Everybody Loves Raymond") has the Ernest Borgnine role as the one who's yelling and complaining all the time (no, he doesn't reprise Borgnine's role from the first film). Telly Savalas looks silly as the doctor who actually has an agenda of his own. Slim Pickens has the goofiest role in the film as an alcoholic Texan who spends the entire movie holding a bottle of wine. Karl Malden, Jack Warden, and the two Shirleys (Knight and Jones) have the only good roles in the film. These roles should have been put into a better, different movie. There are two actors who star in "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" in early roles before they hit it big on television: Veronica Hamel is in this film a few years before she was cast on the great TV show "Hill Street Blues" (she also appeared in Allen's next film: "When Time Ran Out"), and so is Mark Harmon (before "St. Elsewhere"). Now I'll grant you there are some good scenes in this film, but not enough of them. So take my advice: stick with the original film. You'll be glad you did.

** (out of four)

Awkward disaster mishmash has a team of scavengers coming across the overturned S.S. Poseidon, hoping to loot it before it goes under for good. Irwin Allen's sequel to his 1972 blockbuster "The Poseidon Adventure" arrived in theaters SEVEN YEARS LATER! Never mind that nobody cared anymore, why give us such a shoddy production, filled with dim characters and miscast actors, only to trash the memory of your biggest hit? One might end up feeling really sorry for Michael Caine, Sally Field, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, Karl Malden and Shirley Jones were it not for their lost-at-sea expressions (good for a few stray laughs). There's a moment when saintly Jones is tempted into taking some treasures just for herself and she timidly starts stuffing her pockets that is an unintended hoot. The film was a career bungler for all concerned, most especially Allen, who never quite recovered from this. * from ****

This film is more of a remake than a sequel, having virtually the same plot and sets but different characters. This time the filmmakers have an advantage though, because they don't have to spend their budget on creating the moment that Poseidon strikes disaster (already established in the previous film); and there are opportune moments when money is saved by reusing shots from the first film: from time to time showing the Poseidon upside down in the ocean and exploding continuously (how many explosions can the ship sustain?).

This is a laughable and lackluster film. All the prestige and excitement from its precursor have disappeared. Unlike the first film, there is hardly a moment of genuine tension or invention. I never feel that the characters are in any peril. In fact, there are surprisingly few deaths and lots of wasted opportunities for thrills and tension. The action set pieces are very drab and routine. Also, the sets and special effects are cheap and unconvincing.

Like the first film, there's a large all-star cast, but they hardly do or say anything exciting, intelligent, meaningful, original, and that isn't laughable. Pretty much all of their character traits, back stories, and motivations are paper-thin and stereotypes. Some characters are annoying, useless, and unnecessary, and should have been cut from the film or rewritten. The only interesting character derives from the performance of karl Malden, and even his character is underdeveloped and underutilized, let alone adequate to save the picture.

Just like the characters, the plot is paper-thin. It's also very predictable. insipid, and hard to believe. For example, I find it hard to believe that there are still so many survivors left on the ship. Also, there are so many gaps in logic, unanswered questions, and unresolved plot points. As if realizing that there are only so much they can do with a capsized ship the second time, the filmmakers have added an unnecessary and derivative subplot involving Telly Savalas and his crew in a futile attempt to spice up the action.

I sat in my chair being mostly bored and unamused. In fact, I became quite restless. This is not how I reacted to the first Poseidon film.

While "The Poseidon Adventure" wasn't "Citizen Kane," It was a well-crafted thriller filled with interesting characters essayed by a group of great actors. No one chewed scenery as believably as Ernest Borgine.

The sequel brings a host of good actors in their own right, including Michael Caine, Sally Field, Telly Savalas, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, and Karl Malden, but the spark just isn't there. The situations are bizarre, to the point of comical. Aside from the engine room, which looks really close to the set of the original film, the rest of the set looks like it's from an entirely different film.

At one point, the group enters the ship's galley. In the original film, it was a burned-out mess with the dead bodies. In the sequel, it looks entirely different, not burned at all, and there aren't any bodies to be found. This is a pattern throughout the film, where the upside down passageways have an upended chair or two lying around to try and mimic the original sets. It looks like set dressing, and it's obvious. Also, it's VERY brightly lit, far more than the sets in the original film, which stretches realism to the breaking point. Since the ship is on back-up power from the initial capsize, it should be getting darker, not lighter.

The cast does a decent job in the acting department, but are heavily let-down by the script and inane dialogue. Also, the sequel tries to drink from the well of the original film. Since we don't have Rogo, Peter Boyle's Frank Mazetti becomes the stand-in. Since there's no Belle Rosen, she's replaced by the blind Harold Meredith.

I watched it to the end, but I have no rush to see it again, unlike the original film, which I've seen countless times.

Paul Gallico, who wrote the novel the original film is based on, wrote a sequel novel based entirely off the film. Even modified character descriptions to match the actors who played them. It's not his best work, but it's an enjoyable read, and even brings Mike Rogo, James Martin, and Manny Rosen back to the ship, where they end up working together with new characters, part of a salvage crew, to face off with a character who shares traits with Telly Savalas' role. Rogo was always my favorite character, and I would have enjoyed seeing Borgnine return.

Granted, by the time this movie went into production, Borgnine, Buttons, and Albertson were all years older, and it probably would have showed, but one can't help but wonder if the sequel had followed Gallico's novel more closely, and brought those actors back, if it would have been a better final product. One thing is for sure, it couldn't have been any worse.

Borgnine and Caine, competing to see who could chew the most scenery. That would have been something I'd have enjoyed watching repeatedly.

To make a good movie you need to have a good screenplay. They didn't. And they made the movie anyway. Ouch.

I wanted to like it and for the first 15 minutes or so I thought it might be kind of fun. You know, keep my expectations low and just go with the flow. But there was no flow. The scenes were just randomly thrown together.

It's funny at times, I'm not sure if intentionally or not, usually when the actors are barking their lines out like they've just had 10 cups of very strong coffee. It's cruel at times, which seems strange for a family movie. It's confusing at times. Sometimes it's just, odd.

So there you have it. 1970's moving making at its worst. It is a fun cast. Shirley Jones is beautiful, quite lovely as a nurse. But the cast is wasted on a bad movie. Abandon ship!

Oh where to begin? Some of the most annoying characters ever put in a movie? The ludicrous plot that an ocean liner would be carrying a nuclear weapon? In the original film, the characters were a bit trite and hackneyed, but in this film they are all irritating. Instead of anticipating who will survive, you keep hoping the old Poseidon will finally go down so you can turn it off.

It takes a really bad script to create a bomb that these fine actors can't save. This, along with the even worse abomination The Swarm released the year before, virtually ended the disaster movie craze for 20 years.

Still, I watch it every few years. It still has a camp, train wreck quality about it.

Maybe here in Sydney we are all poop side down and as a result we get to lap up floaters like this s-eek!-uel in classy theaters. Released here in 1980 this hilarious all-tar drama was greeted with howls of delight at the session I attended. In fact the audience were so into the ludicrous antics on screen it played like a Rocky Horror session. Within 5 minutes we all knew it was a real disaster: the tug boat scene where you can see the buckets of water tossed in from off-set. after that it was every patron for himself and the cinema rang with advice, cheering for bad acting and oo-waah reactions. The gunfight in the hold among the crates is especially idiotic and allows drunken viewers with friends in altered states also watching to contribute appropriately. I call these films with Michael Caine his holiday house films as I always reckon he agrees to do them because he has seen a house he likes and doesn't want to spend his savings. Like Jaws 3 or 4 or whatever it was called.