Director Wolfgang Peterson will always be dear to me thanks to three remarkable (and remarkably different) pictures, 1993’s “In the Line of Fire,” 1984’s “The Never Ending Story” and 1981’s “Das Boot.” All three are astonishing films made by a master filmmaker at the top of his game, one of them – “Das Boot” – easily one of the four or five greatest movies ever made about the brutality of warfare. Thanks to those, I will follow him anywhere, and through his highs (“Air Force One,” “Enemy Mine”), lows (“Shattered,” “Outbreak”) and in-betweens (“Troy,” “The Perfect Storm”) Peterson continues to make solidly crafted entertainments worthy of at least a modicum of attention.

That said, it’s been awhile since “In the Line of Fire,” and if you ask me the director has been seriously squandering his talents over the past ten-plus years. Consider that “Poseidon,” a remake of Irwin Allen’s 1972’s kitschy cult epic “The Poseidon Adventure” (based upon Paul Gallico’s novel), is as finely tuned a disaster picture you’re ever likely to find, and yet the whole thing is such idiotic drivel a person can’t help but scratch their head and wonder what drew the director to it in the first place. The film moves like lightening and is kinetically gut-wrenching in the most complimentary of ways, and yet it’s so paint-by-numbers obvious (not to mention so surprisingly racist) by the time it comes to its happy conclusion it is likely many people in the audience simply won’t care.

It is depressing because Peterson can and has done much better. It is not like this is the director’s first attempt at making a straight genre picture, and as weak as Mark Protosevich’s (“The Cell”) screenplay is this isn’t the type of movie requiring a degree in rocket science to either figure it out or to find it entertaining. All an audience needs are intriguing characters and a scenario threatening enough they actually worry (and care) about who is going to live and who is going to die. But while the scenario here (massive luxury liner is hit by rogue wave turning it upside down, small group of passengers try to make their way out before it sinks) is a corker, the majority of the characters are so bland and/or forgettable caring about them isn’t even an option.

The actors do, of course, try, and I have to admit two of them; Kurt Russel’s stern-yet-fatherly former fireman and Mía Maestro’s fragile-yet-stubborn stowaway; actually do end up making a rather favorable impression. But the rest are all just blank slates. Josh Lucas’ loner gambler is driven yet lifeless, Richard Dreyfuss’ newly single businessman is far too much of a sad-sack, while Emmy Rossum and Mike Vogel’s young lovers are so cliché the wrapper their wedding ring comes in is covered in processed cheese. Worst of all are Jacinda Barrett’s and Jimmy Bennett’s mother and son, the latter so annoying I actually found myself wanting to see him drown.

But “Poseidon” is hardly a total loss. Where Peterson gets things right are in the thrills. A good 30 or so minutes shorter than the original, the filmmaker takes the film from being an examination of faith (think about it and tell me that’s not what Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine were engaging in during their little battle of wills) and turns it into an adrenalized visceral roller coaster of survival. Once the ship starts sinking, which is relatively quickly, Peterson puts his foot upon the accelerator and refuses to let up. As “Das Boot,” “The Perfect Storm” and “Air Force One” more than proved, the director knows how to make even the most intimate of spaces drip with tension and excitement, the most mundane appliances becoming devilish instruments of death reaching out to snare an unsuspecting victim with vicious mendacity.

Still, it is difficult for me to give the filmmaker a pass no matter how grand William Sandell’s (“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”) production design or how splendid John Seale’s (“Cold Mountain”) cinematography are. The human element is missing in spades, and as magnificent as the film is on a technical level the people are as blank and as faceless as a department store mannequin at Nordstrom. Worse, Peterson can do, and has done, better, and while I’m probably being cruel and disrespectful hammering him for not living up to his potential based upon three films I consider classics I can honestly say I don’t care. For all its technical bravado, “Poseidon” simply sinks.