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apocalypsosBefore we go on, I'd just like to state for the record that I'm not going to be happy unless Adam Baldwin pauses the action for a minute to rip off his pants and reveal orange knitted hot pants. I'm just saying.
And now, onto the first part of the recap ...
The Poseidon Adventure
Part One
We open in Jordan, where a giant earthquake has started a chain reaction that's set up a massive tidal -- wait, what do you mean there's no tidal wave in this movie? Oh, for crying out loud. Well, I suppose the filmmakers should have a good reason for not including a gigantic wave, like, say, gigantic waves not being the least bit timely.
In any event, we see a guy in a Jeep being driven up to a fence, where a man with greasy hair and a thick accent greets him with the business end of an automatic weapon and a, "Good to see you again, brother." Man, I'm glad my family gatherings don't involve automatic weaponry. What? Stop laughing. I'm serious. Okay, maybe not entirely serious, but still. Greasy Hair waves the Jeep past the fence, and it drives off all red and not the least bit camouflaged.
Meanwhile, off in the bushes, military guys and some sniper on a roof watch as the nerdy guy in the Jeep gets out and walks into a warehouse. One of the military guys, whom I immediately recognize as Trini Alvarado's asshole of a husband in The Frighteners, vomits up some exposition about Brother Geek being a leader of a bunch of terrorist cells worldwide. Given the levels of this guy's nerdiness, that would make a lot more sense if most of those terrorist cells spent a lot of time attacking the darkness.
Brother Geek walks through the warehouse into a room full of stereotypical terrorists, who manage to refrain from cursing America's freedom, calling Bush an asshole, and killing kittens long enough for Brother Geek to put up the plans for a ship. Hmm, I wonder which ship that could be.
Meanwhile, off in a van somewhere, a guy I guess we're supposed to assume is Middle Eastern is looking over a cheap-looking tourist brochure for the S.S. Poseidon. Ah, the joys of Photoshop, when you don't actually know how to use Photoshop. The van drives off, while elsewhere we see the aforementioned expository military guy telling his commanding officer how they have to capture Brother Geek and goddamn it, I could have sworn there was a ship in this story.
Off at the warehouse, Brother Geek is rambling on about attacking land, sea, and zzzzzzzzzzzz. Yawn. Wake me up when something sinks.
Captain Exposition orders the sniper to take out the two sentries in front of the warehouse. Wait, only two sentries? You know, there's a difference between low-profile and "That's funny, my forehead wasn't this full of bullets a minute ago." And ... okay, look, this whole terrorist plot is boring, so let me sum it up as quickly as possible. The Americans invade in the warehouse and shoot a bunch of guys in turbans, while somewhere back in the States, everyone who works at Fox News orgasms and has no idea why. Brother Geek starts destroying the hell out of their Poseidon plans, and off in the nondescript van, Random Middle Eastern Guy spots the emergency vehicles racing to the scene and has his driver head right past the place. Ooops! So much for destroying that terrorist plot. Go, USA!
Captain Exposition goes into the warehouse and sees the terrorists's bulletin boards -- damn fine job of being more oragnized than almost every managerial staff I've worked under, by the way -- and notices that the plans for "Sea" are missing. Captain Exposition gets on the phone and says that Washington needs to see all of this on the double.
And it's off to the docks ... somewhere, where the S.S. Poseidon sits all huge and ominous in defiance of the peppy music, and may even be growling quietly at the soundtrack as people gleefully board the damn thing. An announcer welcomes passengers to the ship and tells them not to smoke in designated areas, although if you can manage to erupt in flames without the smoke, you're free to go wherever you like. A diver comes up from checking the hull, which -- and I say this as someone who'd happily let the airline companies de-ice plane wings in July if I thought it would make me safer on a plane -- would creep me right the hell out no matter how safe it would make me. But then again, too many episodes of Jonny Quest as a child have officially ruined my trust in mysterious men in black wetsuits.
Two ship's officers confer over walkie talkies that Poseidon's all safe and sound. Oh, these two are going to be the first to die, aren't they?
Off in the ticket line, people are getting ready to board, and we get a glimpse of a collared Rutger Hauer, who is looking terrifyingly old. Ack. When you look that much like my great-aunt Phyllis, that's not right, y'all. Then we cut to Adam Baldwin (YAY!), which would be so much better if he weren't wearing that stupid baseball cap. You wouldn't think Jayne's knit cap would be an improvement over anything, and then there's this. This is followed by a shot of Steve Guttenberg, which I guess is supposed to be a sign that some men age gracefully and some men turn into Steve Guttenberg.
Some officers make Rutger Hauer take his hat off for his shipboard ID photo, and -- okay, I'm sorry, but the resemblance is so strong, he's Aunt Phyllis from here on out. Sorry, the real Aunt Phyllis. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) steps up for his photo, which declares that he's supposed to be the Ernest Borgnine character, except not. Well, that's not exactly a hard look to trump.
It also looks like we have a Shelley Winters, although this one appears to be travelling without a husband but with a ginormous hat. Then a weirdly-weathered-yet-still-oddly-attractive Bryan Brown and his perky trophy wife step up, and really, if I have to watch this ID photos get taken for much longer, I'm going to go down to the DMV, give every employee a pony and a bottle of Stoli, and water-balloon every customer in there.
Steve Guttenberg and his annoying family step up for their photos, and for anyone who's wondering, this is where you can tell how much they're getting from the novel. Remember Miss Hotpants and the world's most annoying child from the original movie? Well, in the book, their parents are along for the ride. Also in the book, the daughter gets raped by a random sailor during a blackout on the ship after the wreck and spends the last few pages pining for his rape child and the little boy falls into a pit and is never heard from again. After seeing the original movie, the book was awesome in a very creepy way.
Steve Guttenberg's annoying family bounds into their state room, where Shelby (the pretty, pretty daughter) whines about not having another room and Dylan (the spastic younger brother) bounces around the room like a Tigger on crack, although at no time does he utter the phrase, "Whoopee! A zeppelin!" which, considering how this cruise is going to turn out, would have been oddly appropriate. Shelby crabs to her mother about the bed situation, and Mom says they'll have a boys's bed and a girls's bed, which Dad claims "is not what the counselor had in mind." Well, the counselor probably would have been smart enough to book two rooms, ass. Dylan tapes all of the ensuing awkward parental unit conversation, of course, because some little brothers (like mine) are wicked cool and some little brothers (like this one) need to be punted into bottomless holes in the wreckage of sinking ships. The kids flounce off to avoid the parental bickering, leading to sighs and shaking heads. God, I already want none of these people to live, and I can already guarantee they all will.
Elsewhere, Adam Baldwin (YAY!) walks down the hall to his room, where he dumps his luggage on the bed (GUH ... Adam Baldwin (YAY!) has a bed) and proceeds to open the safe. Inside the safe, he finds a handgun. Somewhere off in the black, Jayne Cobb cuddles Vera to his chest just a little tighter in his sleep. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) expertly loads the gun. I suddenly believe in spontaneous combustion as my abrupt lack of panties and the faint scent of smoke are duly noted. Over the loudspeaker, the safety drill is announced. That's the good idea. We should all know which lifeboat to go to when the boat flips over and the lifeboat deck requires a snorkel to reach it.
Off on land (or to be more specific, in Capetown) ... oh, bugger this. We're supposed to be backing up the whole terrorist plot, and the most interesting part of about this sequence is the woman with the cardboard box full of chickens on her head. Dude, I love seeing women do that, because I can't balance anything heavier than a magazine on my head, and she's got live chickens in that box. That should be an Olympic event! The hundred-meter Chicken-in-a-Box event! Employees of Popeye's and KFC immediately disqualified.
Oh, yeah, the plot. So Random Middle Eastern Guy is buying explosives which ... okay, you're buying them now? I'm an expert procrastinator, but this is ridiculous. The dealer tells him the explosives are focused on one central area, and I'm sorry, but there better be a damn good explanation for why focusing all of your explosives in one spot is going to make this ship flip over. First off, it'll take a hell of a lot of explosives in just the right spot to make a ship that big flip, and any explosion that large is going to put a massive hole in the hull, which takes on water so much faster than a few cracks in the side or a few popped rivets. Remember how the original didn't have any holes in the ship, it just flipped over, which is why it took so long to sink. And these people are going to have to climb from at least, what, three or so decks from the top of the ship to the bottom? Come on, man. *stops hyperventilating* Sorry, maritime disaster junkie rant over.
Off on the ship, Faux Shelley Winters finds Aunt Phyllis staring at a map of the ship's decks and asks if he's lost. Then she makes some crack about her husband Manny going on "17 cruises before he died". Oh, poor dead Manny. At least you lived through the first movie, which is more than I can say for her chances of keeping that hat intact. Faux Shelley leads Aunt Phyllis off with a, "Stick with me and you'll get where you're going," which ... eww. Thanks, but no.
They pass a corner where Shelby waits for Dylan, who races down the hallway with his stupid video camera. If he lives through this experience ("If"? HA!), think how much he can sell that video for to Fox News. They'd practically be wetting themselves to get their grubby little paws on it. Shelby doesn't want to be filmed, which leads to Dylan making a crack about this being "the running-for-your-life part of the film." Sometimes the meta, it smacks you inna head.
As they're walking down the hallway, they bump into -- holy crap, is that C. Thomas Howell?! What the hell happened to him? Was there some horrible belt sanding accident I wasn't made aware of? What is it with everybody on this film looking so goddamn weathered? Was it some sort of requirement in their contracts that they all had to go out and be rubbed down with pumice within an inch of their lives? As if the condition of his complexion isn't bad enough, they've got him dressed in this white uniform which -- *checks IMDb* -- oh, hell, he's the Doc? Okay, I'm dead now. I'm dead, and the worms crawling in and out will be typing the rest of this recap. As leathery and gray as he looks, it apparently intrigues the hell out of Shelby, and she intrigues the hell out of him, and, uh, isn't she a teenager? C. Thomas Howell gives her a smile, then winks at Dylan and walks off, leaving Shelby behind to look pouty and all of a very pretty fifteen years-old while wondering about the definition of the term "jailbait".
Off at one of the lifeboat stations, a short, round man with an unfortunate beard is going on about his job titles (ah, I see we've found the snotty purser for this remake) and ends his speech by saying he's in charge of this lifeboat station. "Lucky us," Bryan Brown says cheerfully, which, HEE. I already love you, Bryan Brown. You don't have to work for it. Dylan spots him and immediately goes all fangirl over how he's some big Australian producer guy. Dude, I'm incredibly into movies and I couldn't pick a producer out of a lineup. That's kind of not what they're there for. Then he whispers to his mother about how Bryan Brown produced "The World's Greatest Pop Stars" -- okay, so now I can believe it's kinda possible this stupid kid might recognize him -- then asks the trophy wife, "You placed third last season, right?" *snerk* Well, of course she did. Trophy Wife looks suitably embarrassed, then says in a bad French accent that she got Bryan Brown as a consolation prize. "And I got the only French woman who's prepared to live in the States," Bryan Brown declares.
Mom says Dylan wants to work in movies, then Dylan offers to show Bryan Brown his camera. He brings up the freeze-frame of C. Thomas Howell's creepy leathery face, then makes smoochy faces at his sister, who grimaces right back. Okay, explosives would be really good right now.
Suddenly, the captain's voice comes over the loudspeaker, introducing himself as Paul Gallico. Heh. I wouldn't normally be up for in-jokes like this (Paul Gallico's the guy who wrote the book) but I'll take anything I can get that makes me not want to throttle the entire production right now. He proceeds to talk about the usual "We all welcome you to your future watery grave" spiel, and we cut away briefly to see that today the role of Leslie Nielsen will be played by Peter Weller. Frank Drebin, Robocop ... they have a lot in common, really. But okay, Robocaptain, it is. Coincidentally, somewhere during all of this, he mentions they're leaving from Capetown. Well, that helps, although I could have stood to know that, you know, twenty minutes ago. Thanks bunches!
As Robocaptain is finishing his speech, one of the officers from the security check brings in Adam Baldwin (YAY!), whom he introduces as a "sea marshal." Hee! Wait, is that a real job? Because it doesn't sound like a real job. It sounds like a fake, "Well, we couldn't call him an air marshal without launching the ship with a catapult, now, could we?" kind of a job. Robocaptain warns Adam Baldwin (YAY!) and his rather unfortunately lit haircut to keep his gun tucked away for the trip (Aw, no boom-boom?), then gives him an envelope Homeland Security sent over.
Adam Baldwin (YAY!) opens it to find they have "actionable intelligence" that terrorists might be around, and that Homeland Security gives them authorization to tell the passengers as they see fit. Robocaptain says they shouldn't, and that they have a perfectly servicable security staff on board. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) points out that their security staff is meant to stop little old ladies from stealing poker chips. Man, would I love to see that become a knock-down, drag-out fight. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) vs. a little old lady stealing poker chips -- you determine the winner! "Everything's safe until it isn't," Adam Baldwin (YAY!) says, and if that's the sort of witty banter they're going to saddle him with, I'm going to have to wish for the bitchy ex-prostitute back.
Later, Adam Baldwin (YAY!) and his unfortunate baseball cap (BOO!) are looking over the side of the ship when they see Random Middle Eastern Man getting on board. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) is immediately suspicious, although he leaves before they can make it clear that it might be for something other than just being randomly Middle Eastern, instead of the twenty thousand kegs they roll on board behind the guy.
Oh, wait! There's Adam Baldwin (YAY!), walking right past the kegs. How'd he get down there so fast? Oh, my God, Adam Baldwin (YAY!) knows how to teleport!
Random Middle Eastern Man ominously watches the kegs being rolled on board, which is exactly what you do when you don't want to arouse suspicion.
Next up in Part Two: We leave port and head out to sea. Adios! Bon voyage! Don't forget that eardrums and lungs implode a mile below sea level!
And now, onto the first part of the recap ...
Part One
We open in Jordan, where a giant earthquake has started a chain reaction that's set up a massive tidal -- wait, what do you mean there's no tidal wave in this movie? Oh, for crying out loud. Well, I suppose the filmmakers should have a good reason for not including a gigantic wave, like, say, gigantic waves not being the least bit timely.
In any event, we see a guy in a Jeep being driven up to a fence, where a man with greasy hair and a thick accent greets him with the business end of an automatic weapon and a, "Good to see you again, brother." Man, I'm glad my family gatherings don't involve automatic weaponry. What? Stop laughing. I'm serious. Okay, maybe not entirely serious, but still. Greasy Hair waves the Jeep past the fence, and it drives off all red and not the least bit camouflaged.
Meanwhile, off in the bushes, military guys and some sniper on a roof watch as the nerdy guy in the Jeep gets out and walks into a warehouse. One of the military guys, whom I immediately recognize as Trini Alvarado's asshole of a husband in The Frighteners, vomits up some exposition about Brother Geek being a leader of a bunch of terrorist cells worldwide. Given the levels of this guy's nerdiness, that would make a lot more sense if most of those terrorist cells spent a lot of time attacking the darkness.
Brother Geek walks through the warehouse into a room full of stereotypical terrorists, who manage to refrain from cursing America's freedom, calling Bush an asshole, and killing kittens long enough for Brother Geek to put up the plans for a ship. Hmm, I wonder which ship that could be.
Meanwhile, off in a van somewhere, a guy I guess we're supposed to assume is Middle Eastern is looking over a cheap-looking tourist brochure for the S.S. Poseidon. Ah, the joys of Photoshop, when you don't actually know how to use Photoshop. The van drives off, while elsewhere we see the aforementioned expository military guy telling his commanding officer how they have to capture Brother Geek and goddamn it, I could have sworn there was a ship in this story.
Off at the warehouse, Brother Geek is rambling on about attacking land, sea, and zzzzzzzzzzzz. Yawn. Wake me up when something sinks.
Captain Exposition orders the sniper to take out the two sentries in front of the warehouse. Wait, only two sentries? You know, there's a difference between low-profile and "That's funny, my forehead wasn't this full of bullets a minute ago." And ... okay, look, this whole terrorist plot is boring, so let me sum it up as quickly as possible. The Americans invade in the warehouse and shoot a bunch of guys in turbans, while somewhere back in the States, everyone who works at Fox News orgasms and has no idea why. Brother Geek starts destroying the hell out of their Poseidon plans, and off in the nondescript van, Random Middle Eastern Guy spots the emergency vehicles racing to the scene and has his driver head right past the place. Ooops! So much for destroying that terrorist plot. Go, USA!
Captain Exposition goes into the warehouse and sees the terrorists's bulletin boards -- damn fine job of being more oragnized than almost every managerial staff I've worked under, by the way -- and notices that the plans for "Sea" are missing. Captain Exposition gets on the phone and says that Washington needs to see all of this on the double.
And it's off to the docks ... somewhere, where the S.S. Poseidon sits all huge and ominous in defiance of the peppy music, and may even be growling quietly at the soundtrack as people gleefully board the damn thing. An announcer welcomes passengers to the ship and tells them not to smoke in designated areas, although if you can manage to erupt in flames without the smoke, you're free to go wherever you like. A diver comes up from checking the hull, which -- and I say this as someone who'd happily let the airline companies de-ice plane wings in July if I thought it would make me safer on a plane -- would creep me right the hell out no matter how safe it would make me. But then again, too many episodes of Jonny Quest as a child have officially ruined my trust in mysterious men in black wetsuits.
Two ship's officers confer over walkie talkies that Poseidon's all safe and sound. Oh, these two are going to be the first to die, aren't they?
Off in the ticket line, people are getting ready to board, and we get a glimpse of a collared Rutger Hauer, who is looking terrifyingly old. Ack. When you look that much like my great-aunt Phyllis, that's not right, y'all. Then we cut to Adam Baldwin (YAY!), which would be so much better if he weren't wearing that stupid baseball cap. You wouldn't think Jayne's knit cap would be an improvement over anything, and then there's this. This is followed by a shot of Steve Guttenberg, which I guess is supposed to be a sign that some men age gracefully and some men turn into Steve Guttenberg.
Some officers make Rutger Hauer take his hat off for his shipboard ID photo, and -- okay, I'm sorry, but the resemblance is so strong, he's Aunt Phyllis from here on out. Sorry, the real Aunt Phyllis. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) steps up for his photo, which declares that he's supposed to be the Ernest Borgnine character, except not. Well, that's not exactly a hard look to trump.
It also looks like we have a Shelley Winters, although this one appears to be travelling without a husband but with a ginormous hat. Then a weirdly-weathered-yet-still-oddly-attractive Bryan Brown and his perky trophy wife step up, and really, if I have to watch this ID photos get taken for much longer, I'm going to go down to the DMV, give every employee a pony and a bottle of Stoli, and water-balloon every customer in there.
Steve Guttenberg and his annoying family step up for their photos, and for anyone who's wondering, this is where you can tell how much they're getting from the novel. Remember Miss Hotpants and the world's most annoying child from the original movie? Well, in the book, their parents are along for the ride. Also in the book, the daughter gets raped by a random sailor during a blackout on the ship after the wreck and spends the last few pages pining for his rape child and the little boy falls into a pit and is never heard from again. After seeing the original movie, the book was awesome in a very creepy way.
Steve Guttenberg's annoying family bounds into their state room, where Shelby (the pretty, pretty daughter) whines about not having another room and Dylan (the spastic younger brother) bounces around the room like a Tigger on crack, although at no time does he utter the phrase, "Whoopee! A zeppelin!" which, considering how this cruise is going to turn out, would have been oddly appropriate. Shelby crabs to her mother about the bed situation, and Mom says they'll have a boys's bed and a girls's bed, which Dad claims "is not what the counselor had in mind." Well, the counselor probably would have been smart enough to book two rooms, ass. Dylan tapes all of the ensuing awkward parental unit conversation, of course, because some little brothers (like mine) are wicked cool and some little brothers (like this one) need to be punted into bottomless holes in the wreckage of sinking ships. The kids flounce off to avoid the parental bickering, leading to sighs and shaking heads. God, I already want none of these people to live, and I can already guarantee they all will.
Elsewhere, Adam Baldwin (YAY!) walks down the hall to his room, where he dumps his luggage on the bed (GUH ... Adam Baldwin (YAY!) has a bed) and proceeds to open the safe. Inside the safe, he finds a handgun. Somewhere off in the black, Jayne Cobb cuddles Vera to his chest just a little tighter in his sleep. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) expertly loads the gun. I suddenly believe in spontaneous combustion as my abrupt lack of panties and the faint scent of smoke are duly noted. Over the loudspeaker, the safety drill is announced. That's the good idea. We should all know which lifeboat to go to when the boat flips over and the lifeboat deck requires a snorkel to reach it.
Off on land (or to be more specific, in Capetown) ... oh, bugger this. We're supposed to be backing up the whole terrorist plot, and the most interesting part of about this sequence is the woman with the cardboard box full of chickens on her head. Dude, I love seeing women do that, because I can't balance anything heavier than a magazine on my head, and she's got live chickens in that box. That should be an Olympic event! The hundred-meter Chicken-in-a-Box event! Employees of Popeye's and KFC immediately disqualified.
Oh, yeah, the plot. So Random Middle Eastern Guy is buying explosives which ... okay, you're buying them now? I'm an expert procrastinator, but this is ridiculous. The dealer tells him the explosives are focused on one central area, and I'm sorry, but there better be a damn good explanation for why focusing all of your explosives in one spot is going to make this ship flip over. First off, it'll take a hell of a lot of explosives in just the right spot to make a ship that big flip, and any explosion that large is going to put a massive hole in the hull, which takes on water so much faster than a few cracks in the side or a few popped rivets. Remember how the original didn't have any holes in the ship, it just flipped over, which is why it took so long to sink. And these people are going to have to climb from at least, what, three or so decks from the top of the ship to the bottom? Come on, man. *stops hyperventilating* Sorry, maritime disaster junkie rant over.
Off on the ship, Faux Shelley Winters finds Aunt Phyllis staring at a map of the ship's decks and asks if he's lost. Then she makes some crack about her husband Manny going on "17 cruises before he died". Oh, poor dead Manny. At least you lived through the first movie, which is more than I can say for her chances of keeping that hat intact. Faux Shelley leads Aunt Phyllis off with a, "Stick with me and you'll get where you're going," which ... eww. Thanks, but no.
They pass a corner where Shelby waits for Dylan, who races down the hallway with his stupid video camera. If he lives through this experience ("If"? HA!), think how much he can sell that video for to Fox News. They'd practically be wetting themselves to get their grubby little paws on it. Shelby doesn't want to be filmed, which leads to Dylan making a crack about this being "the running-for-your-life part of the film." Sometimes the meta, it smacks you inna head.
As they're walking down the hallway, they bump into -- holy crap, is that C. Thomas Howell?! What the hell happened to him? Was there some horrible belt sanding accident I wasn't made aware of? What is it with everybody on this film looking so goddamn weathered? Was it some sort of requirement in their contracts that they all had to go out and be rubbed down with pumice within an inch of their lives? As if the condition of his complexion isn't bad enough, they've got him dressed in this white uniform which -- *checks IMDb* -- oh, hell, he's the Doc? Okay, I'm dead now. I'm dead, and the worms crawling in and out will be typing the rest of this recap. As leathery and gray as he looks, it apparently intrigues the hell out of Shelby, and she intrigues the hell out of him, and, uh, isn't she a teenager? C. Thomas Howell gives her a smile, then winks at Dylan and walks off, leaving Shelby behind to look pouty and all of a very pretty fifteen years-old while wondering about the definition of the term "jailbait".
Off at one of the lifeboat stations, a short, round man with an unfortunate beard is going on about his job titles (ah, I see we've found the snotty purser for this remake) and ends his speech by saying he's in charge of this lifeboat station. "Lucky us," Bryan Brown says cheerfully, which, HEE. I already love you, Bryan Brown. You don't have to work for it. Dylan spots him and immediately goes all fangirl over how he's some big Australian producer guy. Dude, I'm incredibly into movies and I couldn't pick a producer out of a lineup. That's kind of not what they're there for. Then he whispers to his mother about how Bryan Brown produced "The World's Greatest Pop Stars" -- okay, so now I can believe it's kinda possible this stupid kid might recognize him -- then asks the trophy wife, "You placed third last season, right?" *snerk* Well, of course she did. Trophy Wife looks suitably embarrassed, then says in a bad French accent that she got Bryan Brown as a consolation prize. "And I got the only French woman who's prepared to live in the States," Bryan Brown declares.
Mom says Dylan wants to work in movies, then Dylan offers to show Bryan Brown his camera. He brings up the freeze-frame of C. Thomas Howell's creepy leathery face, then makes smoochy faces at his sister, who grimaces right back. Okay, explosives would be really good right now.
Suddenly, the captain's voice comes over the loudspeaker, introducing himself as Paul Gallico. Heh. I wouldn't normally be up for in-jokes like this (Paul Gallico's the guy who wrote the book) but I'll take anything I can get that makes me not want to throttle the entire production right now. He proceeds to talk about the usual "We all welcome you to your future watery grave" spiel, and we cut away briefly to see that today the role of Leslie Nielsen will be played by Peter Weller. Frank Drebin, Robocop ... they have a lot in common, really. But okay, Robocaptain, it is. Coincidentally, somewhere during all of this, he mentions they're leaving from Capetown. Well, that helps, although I could have stood to know that, you know, twenty minutes ago. Thanks bunches!
As Robocaptain is finishing his speech, one of the officers from the security check brings in Adam Baldwin (YAY!), whom he introduces as a "sea marshal." Hee! Wait, is that a real job? Because it doesn't sound like a real job. It sounds like a fake, "Well, we couldn't call him an air marshal without launching the ship with a catapult, now, could we?" kind of a job. Robocaptain warns Adam Baldwin (YAY!) and his rather unfortunately lit haircut to keep his gun tucked away for the trip (Aw, no boom-boom?), then gives him an envelope Homeland Security sent over.
Adam Baldwin (YAY!) opens it to find they have "actionable intelligence" that terrorists might be around, and that Homeland Security gives them authorization to tell the passengers as they see fit. Robocaptain says they shouldn't, and that they have a perfectly servicable security staff on board. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) points out that their security staff is meant to stop little old ladies from stealing poker chips. Man, would I love to see that become a knock-down, drag-out fight. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) vs. a little old lady stealing poker chips -- you determine the winner! "Everything's safe until it isn't," Adam Baldwin (YAY!) says, and if that's the sort of witty banter they're going to saddle him with, I'm going to have to wish for the bitchy ex-prostitute back.
Later, Adam Baldwin (YAY!) and his unfortunate baseball cap (BOO!) are looking over the side of the ship when they see Random Middle Eastern Man getting on board. Adam Baldwin (YAY!) is immediately suspicious, although he leaves before they can make it clear that it might be for something other than just being randomly Middle Eastern, instead of the twenty thousand kegs they roll on board behind the guy.
Oh, wait! There's Adam Baldwin (YAY!), walking right past the kegs. How'd he get down there so fast? Oh, my God, Adam Baldwin (YAY!) knows how to teleport!
Random Middle Eastern Man ominously watches the kegs being rolled on board, which is exactly what you do when you don't want to arouse suspicion.
Next up in Part Two: We leave port and head out to sea. Adios! Bon voyage! Don't forget that eardrums and lungs implode a mile below sea level!
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I Watched, I Wondered
Date: 2005-12-13 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-13 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-13 05:58 pm (UTC)And there was a sequel to the book. The three amigos leave the rescue boat and go back on board and now I want to read it just for the wangst.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-13 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-13 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-13 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-13 08:38 pm (UTC)