"Poseidon" a guilty pleasure

I think you know what I'm talking about; a guilty pleasure is a movie that you enjoy despite your better judgment. There are a number of guilty-pleasure movie categories; I've broken it down below:

• Morally offensive: movies you like, even though officially you're offended by them (Wendy's would be "Dirty Dancing")
• Monster movies: where the only surprise is to guess which character gets eaten next ("Alien vs. Predator")
• Dumb comedy: movies that play on your most juvenile tendencies, but you can't resist to love ("Tommy Boy," "Nacho Libre")
• Disaster movies: whose sole purpose exist to feed our innate desire to see things destroyed ("Poseidon" fits in this category)

There are a few things that you should expect going into almost any disaster movie: first, don't expect for any serious character development. Disaster movie actors consider themselves lucky if their characters have a name, let alone a personality. Second, disaster movies are survival movies, which means that once the destruction ends, so does the movie. As long as you're comfortable with these rules, you'll like "Poseidon."

As directed by Wolfgang Petersen (director of "Troy" and "The Perfect Storm"), "Poseidon" has several enjoyably intense action sequences. The sets are pretty amazing (you don't even realize until halfway-in that they've been walking on the ceilings for most of the movie), and the visual effects are impressive and effective. It's a good thing too; that's about all there is to recommend about the movie.

The cast consists of several former A-list stars (Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss), as well as some up-and-coming B-listers (Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum), none of which gets to do much more than run and swim from danger, and occasionally look concerned when the camera focuses on their faces. They are paper-thin characters with next-to-zero by way of character-development. But man do they look good wet!

The dialogue is a work of disaster-movie magic, and exists only to fill the space between the next big action scene. At one point, one of the disposable females says to Richard Dreyfuss: "How bad is it?" (She's apparently oblivious to the hundreds of dead bodies strewn across the ship, several of which she has climbed over.) Dreyfuss looks at her (with concern in his face, of course) and responds: "It's pretty bad." My thoughts exactly; "Poseidon" is a true guilty pleasure. (**1/2 out of four)

What are your favorite guilty pleasure movies?