PG-13

Another summer means another remake. This time, Wolfgang Peterson (“Das Boot,” “A Perfect Storm”) directs “Poseidon,” a slightly above-average remake of a slightly above-average ’70s disaster flick, in which a luxury liner is flipped upside down by a rogue wave on New Year’s Eve. Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell are two card-playing gamblers who lead the way for a group of survivors (Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum and Kevin Dillon, among others), replacing Gene Hackman’s preacher from the original. Much of the rest is the same, including the screaming child who seems to be wearing the exact same suit and has exactly the same haircut as the child from the 1972 original. What follows is a quite entertaining ride around an overturned ship, though it’s unfortunately executed with the predictable heavy handedness of the typical Hollywood blockbuster.

In a key departure from the original—in which Gene Hackman’s character tries to convince the rest of the passengers to leave the overturned ballroom, insisting that they are all doomed if they listen to their captain’s advice and stay put—Josh Lucas’ Dylan simply tells the nosy kid that he is cutting loose. The child then blabs to his mother, Maggie (Jacinda Barrett), and the other leads overhear and join the trio, but none of them try to make an announcement to the hundreds of other folk who are left waiting for the flood that will engulf the ballroom within about half an hour. A quibble yes, but one that definitely limited my sympathies for the characters I was supposed to be rooting for during the rest of the movie.

What follows is, however, undoubtedly fun. Our intrepid survivors spend the next hour or so trying their best to find ways to head up, which is really down, as the ship is turned over. One of our heroes is ex-Navy, another is a former firefighter and a third is an architect. (All the biology teachers, stockbrokers and dog walkers are, of course, left in the ballroom, being practically useless in this kind of situation.) As the passengers follow their fates, there are enough elaborate death traps and nasty surprises to keep one’s eyes from one’s wristwatch. Peterson, who with the German WWII submarine drama “Das Boot” directed the most claustrophobically tense movie in film history, manages to eke one or two particularly gripping moments out of a movie that is essentially scriptless, and even had a couple of audience members shouting “Come on!” as characters come perilously close to drowning.

However, these characters are drawn painfully thinly. One of the strategies of the ’70s disaster movie was to throw a load of famous old character actors into familiar roles so that less screen time would have to be spent on establishing character and more time could be devoted to special effects and elaborate stunts. For example, the original “Poseidon Adventure” starred Shelly Winters, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine. However, the only “character actor” here is Richard Dreyfuss, and he’s playing against type. Josh Lucas, it goes without saying, is no Gene Hackman. Moreover, Richard Dreyfuss is no Shelly Winters, though his character, Richard Nelson, a suicidal homosexual architect, is one of the film’s most intriguing. Dreyfuss, whose return to the big screen is most welcome, is wasted here. After the ship flips, his remaining lines would cover the back of a coaster, and it’s often easy to forget his character is still alive, even though, politely speaking, he is a more accomplished actor than Russell or Lucas could ever hope to be.

Indeed, one gets a little tired of the good-looking white guys’ macho posturing, their saving everybody and their seemingly unnatural sense for locating air ducts. Hispanics, homosexuals and women are relegated to having loud, dramatic deaths or being pulled from the water by Kurt or Josh. Russell’s character is even a former mayor, a rather shamelessly simplistic 9/11 analogy. One wishes that Hollywood wasn’t still being so predictable in this sense. Great! The ship’s Captain is black, how progressive! Oh wait, he’s insisting on staying in the ballroom…

Nevertheless, this all just about stays afloat. The original spawned a terrible sequel, “Beyond the Poseidon Adventure,” as well as a TV-movie remake only last year. With this, I think we’ve well and truly exhausted the “upside-down boat” scenario for one lifetime.