10 Leading Film Characters That Didn’t Really Go Anywhere
8. Robert Ramsey - Poseidon (2006)
Whilst The Poseidon Adventure (1972) truly developed its cast of characters, Wolfgang Petersen’s remake focuses more on the spectacle of a capsized cruise ship, sacrificing Kurt Russell’s cool factor as ex-firefighter and ex-mayor of New York, Robert Ramsey, in favour of him playing the nagging father figure. Josh Lucas’s Dylan Johns then gratefully snatches the role of the sophisticated male lead away from the action star.
Ramsey is overprotective of his daughter, Jennifer (Emmy Rossum), making him very one dimensional, especially as he perceives everyone (even her fiancé) as a threat. On the surface and on the credits, he appears to be a leading character in the film, but his only major contribution to the plot is to provide a way for the other survivors to escape from the capsized vessel, drowning in the process.
Although Gene Hackman’s Reverend Scott also perished to ensure the safety of the other survivors in the original film, he left a clear mark upon the proceedings, so that his death served as the culmination of his character arc. Ramsey is nowhere near as memorable, as his most famous scene in the film is purely the one in which he dies and, other than that, he plays more the sceptic than the driving force of the proceedings.
Whilst it isn’t nice to see Kurt Russell perishing in Poseidon, it at least serves a practical purpose in the plot and brings his character's awkward presence to an end.