Personally, I disagree with the contention that the movie would have benefitted by being longer, as per my quoted comments below from the "Everyone's A Critic" forum:
bradley witherberry wrote:
I understand that some people may not enjoy this film, but to say that it's not well made is gravely mistaken. It requires a great deal of skill on the part of a director and his editor to make a kinetic roller coaster of a movie like Poseidon. Further, it takes tremendous discipline to keep character development and backstory development to a bare minimum - how many times have we seen otherwise exciting movies brought to a grinding halt by conventional boring set-ups? And then to bring this whole enterprise in at under 100 minutes running time?!? It's a well-oiled and superbly engineered machine of a movie - the perfect summer treat. (My only regret is that I didn't see it the first time in IMAX 
)
Earlier this year I saw another great movie - The World's Fastest Indian, and the pacing was the exact opposite - very slow and methodical, carefully examining and developing the film's central character, Burt Munro. That approach was perfect for that movie, but it would have been the death knell for Poseidon. There's a time and place for a reflective philosophical style in moviemaking - but a summer disaster flick ain't it.
)Earlier this year I saw another great movie - The World's Fastest Indian, and the pacing was the exact opposite - very slow and methodical, carefully examining and developing the film's central character, Burt Munro. That approach was perfect for that movie, but it would have been the death knell for Poseidon. There's a time and place for a reflective philosophical style in moviemaking - but a summer disaster flick ain't it.
Less is more!!!