Bad Movie Month goes Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

Welcome back for the last installment of Bad Movie Month's take on English actors in this year's "Badly Done,Brits!" series. Michael Caine is the final fellow to take a bow as we go Beyond the Poseidon Adventure with him.

This 1979 sequel to the 1972 hit movie from Irwin Allen(the Michael Bay of his day) holds the distinction of not earning any Oscar nominations, unlike many of the big budget disaster flicks that Allen churned out during that decade. Perhaps by that point, the levels of overacting from such a Love Boat type cast had become toxic to movie goers.

Caine is front and center here as down on his luck tugboat captain Mike Turner,who is quick to salvage the overturned Poseidon in order to keep his ship from being repossessed. Accompanying him is loyal second mate Wilbur(Karl Malden) and plucky passenger Celeste(Sally Field, who was at the peak of the "feisty female sidekick"  stage in her career).


Caine and Field are meant to be future love interests because of course, they don't get along in the beginning due to his dislike for her coffee making skills,at which point in the squabbling she should have told him to make it himself!

One of the turning points in their relationship is when he starts calling her "Monkey"(after a spider monkey that Wilbur use to own) as an insult but eventually it becomes a term of endearment. However, that nickname only reminded me of Dwight and Angela on The Office.

 Before they get any further in that direction, sinister Dr. Stefan Svevo(Telly Savalas, who looks like a nautical Lex Luthor here) arrives with his crew to supposedly give aid to any survivors. Both groups agree to temporarily team up but you just know that this alliance is not going to last  beyond the next twenty minutes at best.

After managing to get into the ship,which keeps exploding every ten minutes or so, they run into a few trapped folk such as nurse Gina(Shirley Knight), distraught dad Frank(Peter Boyle) in search of his missing daughter,who shows up in the company of elevator operator Larry(Mark Harmon) and alleged millionaire Tex (Slim Pickens).

 It's not hard to figure out how things will turn out as just from the opening credits, you get that huge whiff of soap opera style story telling that is about to commence:

Most of this movie follows the usual pattern of a disaster film: Tragic Death Moments, Characters Who Are Not Whom He/She Claims to Be, Sudden Romance,Pointless Fighting to be Forgiven Later After Near Death/Sudden Death Experience and Instant Back Story Moments.

Caine does his best with his "I don't want to make friends yet I can't help being a hero" character but as it turns out, Sally Field is way more annoying than him. Her character Celeste is supposed to be this quirky go-getter who happens to know just about anything that another person mentions like fine wine, college level sports and world travel.

 Yet Celeste constantly dithers around when it comes to jump across gaps(holding up a whole bunch of others in the process) and whines about a slight injury when Frank get shot during the first fire fight(more about that in a moment). One particularly annoying scene has her follow Mike down a passageway to look for escape only to take a much needed "crying moment" and complain that "This has been a bad day for me!"

A bad day for you? You willingly went aboard a sinking ship to "salvage" some loot while the folks around you are looking for their loved ones and praying to get out alive. Not to mention all of a sudden, you need to whimper about not being married and having a high IQ yet being an underachiever(I would not have blamed Mike for leaving her on the ship right then and there). Yeah, your day is much worse than anyone else's, oh right!:

This isn't really a movie you can get mad at,however. Things just get so ridiculous that you have to just go along with it.

 Svevo and his henchmen run into Mike and company later on in the story as the real reason for this soggy super villain to climb aboard this sinking vessel is revealed-he's out to steal a stash of weapons and a barrel of plutonium. Yep, every commercial cruise ship comes with just such lethal items in their cargo hold, ready for bad guys to swipe them at their convenience!

This leads to a shoot-out in the ship, where Frank bonds with his daughter's would-be suitor before his Tragic Death Moment, and then later outside the ship, where in open waters a-swimming-with- a-wine-bottle-in-hand Slim Pickens takes one for the team and shouts to Sally Field "This one is for you, little lady!" Don't worry, the bad guys get what's coming to them before the closing credits roll:

Interesting enough, Irwin Allen was planning another Poseidon sequel after this that involved survivors of the ship being trapped in a train tunnel. That project never went through but it later became the basis for a Sly Stallone movie, Daylight-just goes to show that even the most worn out ideas can find new life especially in Hollywood.

Well, that is it for Bad Movie Month this year and I thank you all for checking this cinematic schlock fest out. Not sure what the theme will be for 2019 but chances are, it'll be closer to home. Maybe Disney movies or action movies or even Disney action movies! The way those live action remakes of classic Disney animated features are going, I would not be surprised to see this SNL parody come to vivid life in a theater near you some day: