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The Poseidon Adventure (2005)
"All Are Bored!" (Cast, crew and the audience)
The original "Poseidon Adventure" was exactly that - an adventure, and for audiences, it really was new and exciting.
This "new" version fails to be either "new" or exciting from the start. It relies so heavily on stereotypical cliché characters and plot lines, that, as another reviewer implied, they could just as well have had labels written on their foreheads.
Shamefully, this reliance on stereotyping bleeds over into the story itself. Blatant racial profiling seems to be given a big thumbs up by the lead character. The "sea marshal" on board (Adam Baldwin) explains to the ship's security guy that in selecting suspects to keep an eye on from the list of ship's employees, he always follows the most obvious leads to their conclusion. The "moral" of his lesson? If you have a middle-Eastern or other "suspicious" sounding name, or your skin is the wrong colour, watch out, you're probably a terrorist.
Of course, turns out he's exactly right in this super-simplified piece of trash. And the terrorist characters don't just look evil, they bend over backwards to look evil. Perhaps the director was concerned that they may not be sufficiently recognizable as terrorists since they weren't wearing all the overdone headgear that the terrorists wore during the earlier terrorism-plotting scenes.
Certain characters also have an interesting habit of giving long, disapproving looks of contempt to others who are clearly less worthy of salvation than themselves. Of course plenty of films have flawed characters who are found wanting in various ways, but there's something about the smarmy judgementalism in this film that just detracts from the characters who display it.
Young children might get something from this (though I'm not sure exactly whether it would be anything intellectually or morally healthy), but it rarely reaches beyond infantile.
The Insider (1999)
Gets "inside" on multiple levels
This is an excellent film not only for the fine portrayal of a man faced with exposing a corporate conspiracy, but also the pressures on the media that militate against airing such issues. Watching this film brings a new appreciation for reports and documentaries that challenge the status quo. I was particularly reminded of the little-known but powerful documentary "Taken for a Ride" (1996), not only because of the similarities in broad plotlines (corporations doing whatever it takes to maintain or enhance their "market"), but also because of the recognition given to the complex relationships between stakeholders at the corporate AND (more importantly, as the film emphasises) the individual level. Crowe and Pacino are exceptional here. This is not a "fireworks" action film but it maintains a very palpable tension. See it (and keep an eye out for "Taken" - if it hasn't already been buried sopmewhere!).