When considering the merits of a movie remake, I often ask myself what the point of it was. After watching Poseidon, the question was harder to answer than usual. Even the easiest answer, the one I look past first for something deeper -- to cash in quickly on a brand name -- didn't seem to apply. What portion of the moviegoing audience has been clamoring for a do-over of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure?

That movie was considered the daddy of the '70s disaster movies; its reputation, as far as I can figure out, is in a cozy safe zone. It's considered neither a classic nor a wholly embarrassing relic. People may remember it fondly, though it'll never be confused with something like, say, its year-mate, The Godfather. When I watched it, I expected the cheesy characterizations and production values, but I was also surprised that its own little mini-dramas worked in their own ways. It was fun in a self-consciously bombastic way, and it benefitted from putting a lot of stake in throw-'em-together character interaction.

So why make it again? To be fair, Poseidon can claim it's not  a remake -- it bases itself on both movies' source novel by Paul Gallico -- but then that would mean it's just hoping to get by on its disaster premise alone. Fair enough. Disaster scenarios are quite relevant these days, and almost all of them can be tied back to the American psyche after 9/11. The ominously chilly line from the movie's commercials -- "There's nothing fair about who lives or dies" -- sounds like a potentially effective theme.

But even that proved to be too much to expect. Poseidon turns out to be the latest perpetual motion film, wasting no time in overturning the luxury liner and sending a handful of would-be survivors on their grueling escape journey. There's a hurriedness here that eclipses any sense of character development the movie attempts to achieve. All the characters have their requisite backstories, but they're related in a halfhearted manner. This results in a rather dreadful offering of one-note personalities expressing themselves in simplistic movie dialogue, all the while rushing along to the next possible exit, not even having the time to bicker or ponder existentialism the way Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine and company did in the original movie.

Some might consider a forced spirit of cooperation for survival to be more realistic, but all it really serves to do is make the action feel monotonous. With each member of the protagonist party given only a smidge of color to contrast with the foolish, faceless doomed mass, we feel forced to tag along with a group we can hardly care for while invited to either laugh at or, if we play along, gape in horror at the fates of all the others. The way people are disposed of here feels horror-movie gratuitous. Laugh as the jerk gets smashed by falling machinery. Feel that Final Destination glee as a falling man is impaled and then crushed by a flaming elevator. Oh, and remember the stubborn captain who told everyone they'd be safe if they stayed in the upside-down ballroom? Cut to them later in the movie as the walls burst and water floods in. There's an uncomfortable feeling there, in the way the movie just revisits them just to confirm to the audience that, yes, they do die, that we're meant to think they deserved it for not being as smart as the group we're following. I guess that would take away any 9/11 relevance.

Speaking of horror movies, a word must also be mentioned for the way Poseidon regresses to the early ones where, as so many can joke about today, "the black guy always dies first." This movie is unusually oblivious to the way it knocks off the characters played by ethnic minorities. I guess this wasn't a problem in The Poseidon Adventure because there weren't any minorities in that one; but here they're included to keep up with the times, of course, and then they get shafted. Peculiar.

Director Wolfgang Petersen must've been running on auto-pilot here. He's sunk two boats before (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm), so this third one was probably done blindfolded. Poseidon doesn't necessarily look cheap, but the sets, imagery, and action all feel secondhand. We've seen sinking ships before. We've seen open-eyed dead bodies floating in the ocean grave. We've seen stranded characters try to survive time-sensitive situation after situation. We've seen wonderfully constructed sets built expressly for the purpose of watching them get destroyed. But the ones we remember at least had an extra reason for us to linger on the spectacles. What's the reason for Poseidon?

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated "PG-13" for intense and prolonged sequences of disaster and peril.)

Review also posted on www.windowtothemovies.com.