Okay, so you're out at sea after a tidal wave and come across a huge ocean liner that is upside down. What would your first thought be? Going in and looking for valuables? That's exactly what Michael Caine plans along with his small tug assistant Karl Malden and the reluctant passenger, Sally Field, along with the captain of another boat, Telly Savalas, who claims to be part of the rescue team looking for other survivors. I guess they weren't in the main room when Carol Lynley sang "The Morning After". The ship's nurse (there's only one?), Shirley Jones, and some other passengers are found, claiming they were with the other passengers but got separated somehow. Funny, I don't remember seeing them and I certainly would remember seeing Marian the librarian and Shirley Partridge with Ernest, Stella, Gene, Shelley and the others from the original film.
"I find it very ironic captain that I'm one of the people that I came down to rescue", Telly Savalas says, and it's probably the most intelligent quote in the movie. Why didn't Michael Caine just leave a trail of breadcrumbs in the path that they utilize to get down and put something to block vent from closing on them so they would be trapped? Those plot devices are absurd but certainly more intelligent than anything that happens in this wonderfully laughable film that if it wasn't so ridiculous would make a great disaster movie spoof.
Sally Field is absolutely wonderful in this because she has never played a dumb character (dizzy yes, dumb no) up until then, and she shares her Oscar for "Norma Rae" that year with this performance. There should be a drinking game for every time she says something idiotic. You've also got Peter Boyle, Slim Pickens, Angela Cartwright, Shirley Knight, Jack Warden, Veronica Hamel and Mark Harmon, maybe not a story cast for the most part, but an eclectic one. Then there's the art direction. Nobody can create an upside-down ship set like Irwin Allen.
I would rank this one a little worse than "The Swarm" but much better than "When Time Ran Out", ironic considering that it came out in between those two, showing that the time of Irwin Allen had long passed. So between trying to get these surviving passengers out of there, Kane, Field and Malden find the cash room, and even though there are explosions going on around them, they stop to analyze the value of the antique coins. You can't make a bad movie any more fun like this because everything is just so ridiculous. I could have ranked this as a bomb, but I had too much fun so that takes it up a couple notches.
"I find it very ironic captain that I'm one of the people that I came down to rescue", Telly Savalas says, and it's probably the most intelligent quote in the movie. Why didn't Michael Caine just leave a trail of breadcrumbs in the path that they utilize to get down and put something to block vent from closing on them so they would be trapped? Those plot devices are absurd but certainly more intelligent than anything that happens in this wonderfully laughable film that if it wasn't so ridiculous would make a great disaster movie spoof.
Sally Field is absolutely wonderful in this because she has never played a dumb character (dizzy yes, dumb no) up until then, and she shares her Oscar for "Norma Rae" that year with this performance. There should be a drinking game for every time she says something idiotic. You've also got Peter Boyle, Slim Pickens, Angela Cartwright, Shirley Knight, Jack Warden, Veronica Hamel and Mark Harmon, maybe not a story cast for the most part, but an eclectic one. Then there's the art direction. Nobody can create an upside-down ship set like Irwin Allen.
I would rank this one a little worse than "The Swarm" but much better than "When Time Ran Out", ironic considering that it came out in between those two, showing that the time of Irwin Allen had long passed. So between trying to get these surviving passengers out of there, Kane, Field and Malden find the cash room, and even though there are explosions going on around them, they stop to analyze the value of the antique coins. You can't make a bad movie any more fun like this because everything is just so ridiculous. I could have ranked this as a bomb, but I had too much fun so that takes it up a couple notches.