...I'd forgotten how awful this was -- my only viewing was the expanded ABC broadcast (which I taped, but lost!) back in 4th grade! Caine is in his shouting-SWARM mode and the movie is good for laughs, whenever there isn't stock footage from the first movie OR interminable scenes of people walking up and down corridors.
Jerry Fielding's music is just as bad as the movie. It sounds like it's accompanying an entirely different film than what's on-screen -- in fact it sounds like library music at times. Unbelievably awful!
Warner's DVD accompanies the release of POSEIDON and looks fantastic...they even threw in a vintage featurette and the trailer (but no deleted scenes from the ABC broadcast).
As bad as it is, for $9 and under it's worth a few laughs.
I love BEYOND THE POSIEDON ADVENTURE, and for all the reasons you state, and more.
Like Shirley ("What the HELL am I doing in this?") Jones telling blind author Jack Warden, "I have eyes...!" Or Telly Savalas unofficial reprising of his role as Blofeld in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, except this time, he's really let himself go. Sally Field in full-on annoyance mode, or Michael Caine just waiting to cash that fine, fine Irwin Allen paycheck, or Slim Pickens getting machine-gunned as he swims to safety (thus making up for the fact he survives being in THE SWARM).
It's all good. In fact, BEYOND THE POSIEDON ADVENTURE is right up there with great cinematic crap like BATTLEFIELD EARTH, XANADU, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, RHINESTONE, and THE OSCAR (when is THAT coming out on DVD???).
I didn't even know this was on the release schedule, but psychically, I've already bought this. Cannot wait to see it again!
The one mildly amusing bit for me in this idiotic "sequel" (if you watch the two films back to back, you can not remotely believe they're taking place in the same universe) is when Peter Boyle says in a huff, "I own a bar in Morristown, New Jersey!"
That happens to be where I live now, and when I saw this in the theater in 1979 in next-door Madison, New Jersey the audience suddenly started laughing and clapping at this unexpected line that hit close to home (litereally!)
Well, I watched it again this weekend with the Signifcant Other, and the two of us nearly laughed ourselves sick. Irwin Allen must've been really financially generous to his actors . . . who the hell could possibly read this script and think appearing in it would be a good idea? Of course, adding an extra zero onto a paycheck could even make Beyond the Posiedon Adventure seem like one. [/i]
Who? Michael Cane, that's who. A man who has only ever been known to have turned down two movies - Pirates and Timbo Hines' The War of the Worlds (the latter possibly only because they didn't have the money). Look at the man's resume!
The novel that shares the same name as the film is a little more tolerable, but that's not saying much. Paul Gallico (whose original novel is not a pleasant read today) wrote a sequel novel done to the film rather than the first novel, and you had the characters of Rogo, Martin and Manny Rosen actually returning to the ship for the most contrived of reasons (in Martin's case, it was the thrill of the adventure if Rogo was going back. Guess Nonnie didn't matter much after all!) and getting caught up in a big clash with a bunch of good and evil salvors.
But the movie is just.....ugh. The Swarm is more interesting to watch then this ever will be.
