Poseidon's Fury: Escape from the Lost City

You can't separate the film itself from the setting -- an attraction at the wonderful Universal Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando. There's a magic to the presentation of this multimedia extravaganza, which combines projection onto a screen of water, fire and water effects and many more aspects of theater. As a film, it couldn't stand on its own, I suppose, but in its context you can't deny the magic.

The original Poseidon's Fury: Escape from the Lost City was like everything else in IOA; a technological achievement. It blended detailed sets, groundbreaking F/X, a talented live actor, and great animation all weaved together with an engaging story to create an incredible in-the-movie experience (much like a beefed up T2 3-D: Battle Across Time).

The original version had a wise elderly man as your tour guide as he took you to Atlantis where Poseidon rules. It's here your tour guide is revealed to be Zeus and he fights his evil brother Poseidon to save the human race. The gods are animated in this version with a stellar voice cast and Poseidon (voiced by Jeremy Irons) is a merman creature. The story seems to click in the original.

The new version gives you a whiny guide who accidentally takes you to Atlantis where he gives Poseidon (now a good guy) his trident so he can fight the bad guy who took over Atlantis. Not only is your guide annoying and the plot sucks, but the gods are projections of B-movie live actors in cheap costumes floating around the screens. The F/X are still good but not everything clicks in this one.

So I give the original a 10 but the new one a 6!