The remake plays it straight. The original five Oscar winners, including Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters. Are missed here .The remake has only one: Richard Dreyfuss as a gay passenger contemplating suicide. Petersen's stripped-down version jettisons the old script in favor of one by Mark Protosevich that invents new characters and scales their sob stories for short attention spans. Kurt Russell does the stalwart-hero honors as Robert Ramsey, a former mayor of New York who was once a firefighter and is now traveling with his hottie daughter (Emmy Rossum) and her boyfriend (Mike Vogel), hoping they won't have sex, at least not in front of him. That's a lot of baggage for a character to carry when they could have just outfitted Russell with an eye patch, called him Snake Plissken and titled the film Escape From the North Atlantic.
Josh Lucas has the most colorful role, as Dylan Johns, a professional gambler who hits on a young mom (Jacinda Barrett) vacationing with her son (Jimmy Bennett). The rest is spotting familiar faces from TV: That stowaway is Mia Maestro, from Alias, she is gorgeous so that helps.
Director Wolfgang Petersen has the credentials to do a remake of the movie, based on a novel by Paul Gallico. Given that he's got his feet wet enough with Das Boot and The Perfect Storm, and enough experience helming big budgeted summer movies like Air Force One and Troy, however, what's the point of a remake? Perhaps it's for the action sequences, to see how far time has brought us with an update of stunt techniques . You'll end up entertained if you forgive the cliches and let Petersen grab you with the visuals, from the avalanche of water in the ballroom to the eerie sight of a flooded crawl space where wires take on the form of deadly tentacles. You don't expect a remake to spring surprises. This film has a few up its sleeve. Decent summer popcorn flick .
Josh Lucas has the most colorful role, as Dylan Johns, a professional gambler who hits on a young mom (Jacinda Barrett) vacationing with her son (Jimmy Bennett). The rest is spotting familiar faces from TV: That stowaway is Mia Maestro, from Alias, she is gorgeous so that helps.
Director Wolfgang Petersen has the credentials to do a remake of the movie, based on a novel by Paul Gallico. Given that he's got his feet wet enough with Das Boot and The Perfect Storm, and enough experience helming big budgeted summer movies like Air Force One and Troy, however, what's the point of a remake? Perhaps it's for the action sequences, to see how far time has brought us with an update of stunt techniques . You'll end up entertained if you forgive the cliches and let Petersen grab you with the visuals, from the avalanche of water in the ballroom to the eerie sight of a flooded crawl space where wires take on the form of deadly tentacles. You don't expect a remake to spring surprises. This film has a few up its sleeve. Decent summer popcorn flick .