I'd like to rant about how horrible "Poseidon" is. Part of me doesn't want to, simply because it was so bad that I had a great time laughing at it. But since MST3K no longer exists, I unfortunately can't refrain from my insults and wait for Mike and the 'bots to do a better job. Plus, this movie was so bad that it even went so far as to feature one of the Black Eyed Peas in a minor role, and that's a crime against humanity. Sure she's hot... but (IMO) her music sucks and as anyone who has seen this movie knows, so does her acting (fortunately we don't see much of it).
So... I think Richard Dreyfuss only took on this role to cement the death of his already fading career. I can understand why an actor would want to take on playing a gay character, but why someone as seasoned and respected as Dreyfuss would take on the part of the most stereotypical gay character ever written, I have no idea. There's a part where he and another survivor are climbing across an elevator shaft, inches away from certain death. During this sequence, Dreyfuss actually takes the time to HIT ON THE GUY. Now I don't care what your sexual orientation is... if you're about to fall to your death in an elevator shaft, the LAST thing on your mind is going to be how attracted you are to the person who is helping you survive.
And then there's the whole Old-Weathered-Action-Hero versus the Young-Radical-Action-Hero subplot this movie has going on. I swear, Josh Lucas might as well have been carrying around a little steno pad and jotting down notes as Kurt Russell gave him action hero lessons. Seriously, that is what he does throughout this movie. It's as if Russell sat back, examined his entire career, and realized that the majority of roles he's had consisted of him punching out people and running from explosions. And then when he received the script for "Poseidon" he said what old Jack Burton always says... "What the hell." As for Lucas... he may be a decent actor from time to time, but with this and last summer's "Stealth" bomb, he might want to consider never doing an action movie again before he's dubbed "the poor man's Vin Diesel." His character is so vapid that there is literally no reason to root for him. Now, normally when I watch a stupid action movie, as much as I'd like to see the idiot hero die a gruesome death, I enjoy the fact that he survives because there tends to be something cool about the dude... maybe he makes a few good jokes... he's suave with the babes... he just has a badass looking gun, whatever. But Lucas's character is just a total *****ebag from start to finish. He has almost no personality at all, and what little he does have is completely unlikeable.
Of course there are all the other cliches of a bad action/disaster movie... scenes that were literally RIPPED from another film (in this case, Titanic), the rebellious daughter who has a boyfriend her hardened father doesn't want her to marry but by the end he "gives" her away to the kid, heroes who all appear to be normal people at first glance but we soon learn had convenient backgrounds as Navy SEALS or firemen, etc. I could go on and on for hours about how awful this movie was, but it does have one redeeming factor, as stated before: its so awful that you'll have a great time laughing at it.
Bottomline: "Poseidon" is proof that the biggest turds don't float... they sink to the ocean floor.