Oh, why do I do this to myself? Well, because someone had this flick handy, read my review of the original and offered it up for review, that’s why. That and I’m issuing a shot across the bow to anyone thinking this rusty old clunker will be a good movie because of the list of stars (some of the fading and fallen variety). Anyway, thanks in part to the massive success of blockbusters such as Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien (among others) to by 1979, the star-studded disaster epic was pretty much dead in the water. However, Hollywood kept them coming for a little bit longer despite poor critical and audience reception.
Sadly, when original ideas started drying up, sequels to older crowd pleasers because one escape route that seemed to fail spectacularly despite stunt casting efforts galore. The great 1970 film Airport devolved into three miserable “look at the law of diminishing returns in action” sequels before crash-landing and for some reason, producer/director Irwin Allen decided to hold out for seven years to make a follow up to his smash hit The Poseidon Adventure. Well, he did get the seriously star-packed and seriously goofy disaster flicks The Towering Inferno and Earthquake made plus some TV projects in the interim, so he was a busy man. However, in the case of Poseidon’s second go, the result is pretty awful as a sequel, so seeing Beyond The Poseidon Adventure only comes recommended if you can mentally separate the two films and pretend this follow-up flick is a bad dream had by one of the survivors of the first movie… Continue reading
