Plot: What’s it about?
Like most forced sequels, “Beyond The Poseidon Adventure” falls way short of its original, “The Poseidon Adventure”. Taking place right after the original, “Beyond..” starts with a group of 3 people out on a tugboat searching for ships to salvage. Captain Mike Turner (Michael Caine), Celeste Whitman (Sally Field) and Wilbur Hubbard (Karl Malden) notice the coast guard patrolling over the ocean. Being that they are so far out, Turner determines there must be someone stranded, and boy is he right. Not long after, they spot the bottom of the Poseidon, a luxury liner that was hit with a large wave, capsizing it in the original film. Upon arriving at the ship another small ship has the same idea. Headed by Captain Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas), this ship has a slightly different motive than Turner and his crew. Turner and his crew claim all the valuables within the ships bows whereas Svevo and his crew are only looking for one thing, a certain crate in the storage compartment that contains a barrel of plutonium along with enough weapons to start a war. Once inside the ship more and more survivors are found alive and dampen Turners plans of finding valuables and getting out of the ship. And when the only way out collapses behind them, they are forced to press forward.
The movie itself moves extremely slow. It feels like a forced sequel after a movie does well at the box office. It reminds me of a movie that does extremely well in theaters, today, and then in 6 months a straight-to-DVD sequel comes out that really has nothing to do with the original, yet uses the title to gain fame. This movie could have been set anywhere, but since “The Poseidon Adventure” did well, they set it in a turned over ship and pushed it out, and they failed. They did get some big name actors to play the characters, but even with the best talent, this ship had already flipped over before the opening credits.
Video: How does it look?
The video is present in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. It looks surprisingly well considering it was a second rate sequel from 1979. All of the colors look very good for the time period that the film was made. They even look better than some DVD’s that are put out today. I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of the video on this DVD considering the only reason the DVD was put out was because of the release of the “Poseidon” remake.
Audio: How does it sound?
Well, they got the video right, but the audio is severely lacking. The only audio track supplied is a 1.0 Mono track and it’s as good as a mono track can get, which isn’t very good. The dialogue is completely overpowered by the soundtrack which caused problems throughout the movie. I kept having to turn the volume up and down depending on when the soundtrack kicked in. Not the greatest audio for a DVD release.
Supplements: What are the extras?
There is a Behind The Scenes featurette that runs about 22 minutes long and is pretty much your typical behind the scenes. It’s not a bad featurette, but it’s not much better than the movie. The only other feature on the DVD is a “Disaster Movies Trailer Gallery” which is just a fancy way of saying trailers. Not much on this disc other than the movie.
