The original Poseidon Adventure was a pretty unseaworthy tub sunk by a leaky plot, soggy characterisation and drippy dialogue.

However, the basic premise of a luxury liner getting up-ended by a freak wave held water and director Wolfgang Petersen - veteran of a fleet of aquatic hits such as The Perfect Storm - seems the ideal skipper for Das "Bloody Big" Boot.

And so it proves.

Don't go looking for nuanced displays of emotional complexity by a rounded cast. The script needs a bilge pump and the characters a lifeboat to stay dramatically afloat. Indeed, they're so wooden they'd bob to the surface.

No. Be prepared to be knocked overboard by a series of stunning submarine setpieces which show a brutal edge and unsentimentality missing from the damp-eyed 1972 version.

A perfunctory introduction of the key players - Russell's ex-firefighter and former US mayor, Lucas's self-centred gambler and Dreyfuss heartbroken gay millionaire - quickly give way to an unstoppable stream of action setpieces.

After a metereological blunder of Michael Fish proportions, the good ship Poseidon is rolled over by a rogue wave the size of Wales.

While the rest of the crew and passengers nervously eye popping-rivets-in-waiting (a Petersen speciality) Lucas and Russell lead their little band upwards.

The find themselves running the gauntlet of flash-fires, torrents surging down corridors, scrambles through claustrophobic air vents and Kevin Dillon's sneering wrong 'un.

Purists may carp at the absence of Gene Hackman's torn priest but surely no-one rues the non-appearance of Hollywood lardbucket Shelley Winters doggy-paddling in unsuitable underwear.

Petersen has shaved eighteen minutes off the original...but he has shelled out $135m dollars more than the $5m cost of the Leslie Nielsen-skippered original.

But all the cash is up there on the screen. Eye-watering sequences include a terrific scene when swimmers in the liner's pool are swilled down the celestial U-bend by the rogue roller.

Corpses drift down swamped corridors and there's little room for gallantry as the desperate survivors work their way towards what they hope will be safety.

This thrill-drenched Poseidon goes down a storm.

Tim Evans