The new year gets off to a bad start for a boat load of passengers on a doomed luxury liner, but at least the pain’s over quicker for them than for the castaways stuck watching this bilge-filled remake of 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure. Director Wolfgang Petersen emphasizes repetitive action and special effects over character, making it hard to care much for the little knot of survivors struggling upward deck by deck after a 45-metre wave overturns their vessel.

Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss and Josh Lucas lead the cast. The movie comes as a bare-bones single DVD or in a two-disc set with featurettes on the upside-down set design and the rigours of shooting an ocean flick in a studio soundstage, plus a History Channel documentary on giant rogue waves.

And what’s a bad remake without a bad sequel? Also debuting on DVD is Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, a laughable 1979 followup starring Michael Caine, Sally Field and Telly Savalas in the story of salvagers trying to loot treasures from the overturned ship before it sinks.