... so I'm being more than generous for the cinematography, sound, and special effects (they do give out Oscars for these after all) and raising it to 3/10, and still I'm feeling very generous given it is neither Christmas nor my birthday. I thought this thing had been embarrassingly and quietly buried by the networks a decade ago, and there it was today on a cable channel! That I actually pay for! This thing is a camp classic that seems to aspire to be something in the vein of "Independence Day", except this film does not have Will Smith and manages to make that 1996 film look like Citizen Kane in comparison. A bunch of earthquakes strike up and down the west coast making Dr. Samantha Hill (Kim Delaney), "an intellectual earthquake expert" - do they actually give out such degrees and job titles? - believe that there is an even bigger earthquake coming. She manages to keep a straight face spouting lines like "These are not from our fault. They are from the faults affected by our fault." Hey this dialogue is somebody's fault! She predicts a "big one" will come and lop off a piece of the entire west coast UNLESS...they follow her cunning plan. Of course this involves nuclear warheads planted all along the west coast and therefore a massive migration away from the west coast for everybody. And we must have a tent hospital with lots of doctors out in the desert encampments being forced to make life and death decisions, acting like they have never had to do this before. Are these guys all podiatrists or something? But I digress.This thing drags on for four hours so we need lots of interpersonal relationships that need healing, including a father/daughter pair that I didn't recognize until today. Hey, that's Kaley Cuoco as the daughter when she was only 17, three years before "Big Bang Theory", here in a film in the tradition of Irwin Allen, who ironically believed in the theory that any film with a big enough bang is worthwhile entertainment! Oh, and then there is Jeff Bridges as the president, who proves he still has that common touch by playing basketball with Fred Ward's character, who although he is the FEMA director, actually gets his hands dirty in the disaster. Oh well, at least he wasn't at some horse show at the time. See Hurricane Katrina and FEMA director Michael Brown for reference.Well after four hours of sitting through this I will tell you that "the movie ends with a big explosion". It would have to, else there is really no payoff. I'm going to make you sit through the entire thing to learn anything more. If you must. Not recommended for anything but beer bong or drinking game enhanced laughter.

Yeah OK not the best movie ever made but what do you expect? It was a TV movie with the budget to match. The acting was not great but when you don't have the best talent to start with you aren't going to have an Oscar or in this case an Emmy worthy performance. All that being said it was good for what it was. It was even better than some of your "blockbusters". Do I think the events in the movie could happen in real life? Maybe. Do I think they would happen just like that? Absolutely not. But it's a good way to kill a couple hours and enjoy yourself. No harm no foul. If the movie had a bigger budget and maybe some better talent in it who knows might be the best movie ever made or at least in the conversation.

The idea of it all was great and with a massive earthquake dividing America in half it draws you to see the movie. But once you get into the movie it starts getting cheesy. They discover an never before seen major fault line running through North America 700 km below the surface. Now as everybody knows 700 km into the surface THERE Isn't ANY SURFACE, its all just a pile of molten rock cause of the heat, it couldn't ever get any pressure to build up under the tectonic plates. Its just impossible. And the worst setback is the zooming in, zooming out part of the camera's. One second ur looking at a high image of a disaster scene, the next you see feet trampling around and pieces flying around their ears but always able to dodge every piece of it. If i can give you one piece of advice, if this is EVER on TV again, just SWITCH THE CHANNEL! It'll put you asleep when you watch it.

Yesterday, this movie was in the German TV. I must say I could not say if the movie was bad or good, because I got a bad headache just watching for a few min.! What is it today with these movies? Are the cameramen on LSD or is this because they think a movie is more "dynamic" when Zoom, in Zoom out, Zoom in...etc.? Maybe I will try this movie again when in better condition, but I get the impression that they should show a epilepsy warning in the title. The story itself was not bad, and Fred Ward is a good actor. The bad thing is, I thought it could have been a nice movie, if it weren't for the camera work. A few scenes are a bit over dramatic (the car), I don't think this could happen so quick.