IF YOU want exciting peril on the sea special effects, look no further than Wolfgang Petersen. The director, who first made his name with the brilliant submarine drama Das Boot and who was also behind The Perfect Storm, has set about remaking the classic

IF YOU want exciting peril on the sea special effects, look no further than Wolfgang Petersen.

The director, who first made his name with the brilliant submarine drama Das Boot and who was also behind The Perfect Storm, has set about remaking the classically cheesy 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure and, as you would expect, the watery action is very well handled indeed.

Petersen's approach has been to strip the story down to basics, even the name of the film becoming the stark Poseidon. There's little scene setting before a freak wave hits the eponymous luxury cruise liner, flipping it upside down and leaving our cast of clichéd characters to try to save themselves.

There's former mayor and former firefighter Kurt Russell, travelling with his daughter and there's professional gambler and wide boy Josh Lucas. There's suicidal gay architect Richard Dreyfuss and there's pretty stowaway Mia Maestro. There are plenty of others around too and in the brief breaks between the action set pieces you can decide between yourselves which of them are going to make it through to the end of the movie.

The dialogue is, of course, appalling - what else would you expect from a disaster movie? But Poseidon moves along at a rip-roaring pace and if it's just action thrills you want you're in the right place.