The winning ingredients that go into “Poseidon” are typically unwelcome nine months out of the year.

There’s the simple A-to-B plotting of an almost nonexistent story. Fine actors like Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss reduced to sneer-worthy clichés like the hero who always prefers to work alone and the swishy gay man who always has time to flirt. Toss in some mean-spirited, yet giggle-worthy. violence and death, add a twist of melodrama, and you’ve got a brain-melting enjoyment that goes down easy but may make your brain a little gassy later on.

When presenting an effects extravaganza such as this, it helps to have quality actors such as Lucas, Dreyfuss, and Kurt Russell. The key female roles of kid-losing single mom, defiant hot-to-trot daughter, and Latino stowaway crybaby are well filled by Jacinda Barrett, Emmy Rossum and Mia Maestro. Their only real purpose is wet clothing eye candy and the occasional sob scene.

But that’s fine, the filmmakers score one with the horndog teen audience and the three of them are all decent enough actors to emote or screech on cue. Everyone involved appears to be in on the joke, having a good time and not over-thinking their roles.

If it’s anything, “Poseidon” is a rare summer time saver. Clocking in at under two hours is one of its strongest selling points, and it’s also a quick starter. We only briefly meet all the main characters before the big wave hits, knocks the boat upside down, and the climb to safety begins. Our card shark hero knows from looking at a wall mounted boat map, and an offhand reference to his time in the Navy, that the best thing to do is climb up to the engine room and exit the boat through the propeller tubes.

The action scenes are all serviceable enough, creating some real suspense in places. It’s oddly gruesome at times with people being electrocuted and catching on fire, yet never short of hilarious, which is also a little disturbing when you leave the theater and start to think about it.

Over-the-top violence has become comedy thanks to our obsession with violence, from “Faces of Death” to “Bumfights” to the Grand Theft Auto games. Be honest, who hasn’t wandered around aimlessly shooting civilians or creating massive car crashes in those games?

It’s this mentality that leads to the funniest scene in the whole movie, being a toss up between two unlikely scenes. One involves a guy having an engine fall on him. The other, a homosexual man calling a Latin busboy “gorgeous”, then seconds later as they dangle in a burning elevator shaft, shaking said busboy off of his pant leg so he can fall to his death before being crushed by a falling elevator. The first scene had the whole theater laughing, and the second was met with scattered chuckles.

Just how is it that we have gotten so nasty to the point that actions formerly reserved for slasher movies are making their way into family entertainment? Why is it OK for kids to buy a ticket to something like this, but not something like “South Park”? Shouldn’t we be more worried about kids becoming desensitized to dead bodies than the f-bomb or sexual intercourse between Saddam Hussein and the devil?

It makes you wonder just what kind of pseudo-morals the members of the MPAA board have. For God’s sake, they made Parker and Stone re-cut a marionette sex scene, but director Wolfgang Peterson can show piles of dead bodies, people on fire, and another character drowning in detail while still coasting to a PG-13 because there’s no potty talk. If it’s a status thing, as Parker, Stone and Kevin Smith have theorized, that’s even worse. Peterson can drown your grandmother while you watch, but Smith can’t drop a shocked expletive about it without a ratings change.

MPAA beefs aside, “Poseidon” is still a fluffy piece of summer cotton candy. What it lacks in substance it makes up for in style with good acting and some quality production design. Though the characters are a patchwork of clichés and stereotypes, they’re no more offensive than your average sitcom. Still, don’t be tricked into taking the family based on the rating. It’s more gruesome than one would think, and nobody wants to listen to your 4-year-old scream every time someone gets electrocuted or bursts into flame.