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To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply A Masterpiece

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

... 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.

Almost every criticism that can be thrown at this mini series has already been made, so I will start with mine: * the stereotyped young, beautiful, brilliant, kick-ass woman who will not fall into line and insists on playing by her rules which run counter to all others. She is right and everyone else is wrong. She wears a tightly fitting shirt throughout the film and never changes it, so presumably everything happens in one day.* The squabbling families - father and son, father and daughter, husband and wife. All disaster movies have them so they can either be killed off or reconciled.* The rupture following the train down the tracks. That's the part where I suspended all belief and just sat back for the ride.* We are told that the fault is so deep underground that no instruments have been invented which could measure it. Later they have to set their nuclear war heads at 350 feet or thereabouts to fuse the fault. Gimme a break! I thought coal mines went lower than that. 3,500 feet would have sounded more likely. 3.5 miles even better.The good points: * I liked the split screen and the special effects.* It was fun for a few hours and made a change from talk shows, cooking shows and home the shopping channels.On a cold wet winter's night when you have nothing better to do, stoke up the fire, grab a few friends and sit back for the ride.

The usual disaster movie with its host of characters with their inter-personal relationships being shown as they prepare to battle a disaster. Three earthquakes in one day in the western part of the country may be too much to take, but this is what makes for an interesting story.The governor of California is a woman who is divorced and is in night clothes as her ex-husband and daughter go off for a camping trip.Beau Bridges shows emotion as our nervous president. The FEMA guy is not at all like Michael Brown of the Bush Administration. Once he realizes what's going on, he literally throws himself into the solution which will cost him his life.The problem with the film is that the characters are terribly cliché- the doctor and FEMA director, estranged as well as a surgeon and his wife. It seems that disasters always brings out the best in people. People come together as a cohesive unit to fight off the evil elements. We've just seen so much of this before.

Recap: Suddenly disaster strikes Seattle. A huge earthquake devastates the entire city. Soon thereafter an even bigger earthquake strikes northern California (chasing and devouring a train for instance). The president assembles a team of the top experts in the field to find out what is going on. Dr Samantha Hill is on that team and has a theory. She believes a deep (really deep - I think she stated 700 km deep which is astounding considering that the Earths crust is at most 100 km thick (I'm not sure about the last figure, but 100 km is larger than all I could find)) hidden fault is responsible and that the earthquakes are separate but connected. And that is not enough. She predicts that next quake will strike San Francisco. But she has problems convincing anyone that her theory is correct. Until she is proved right that is.Comments: This is one of the biggest clichés ever. I doubt that the writers had any ideas of their own at all. Each and every step of the plot is predictable and typical of this kind of movie (and often stolen from another movie, for example Armageddon). All characters have troubles in their relationships at the beginning, but of course all reconcile (quickly and easily) during the movie. Each and every character is also deeply stereotypical. Thin like paper and not developing anything. Motives are blunt and typical clichés.I still wonder why in way too many bad movies the final solution is nukes. Here the nature is behaving badly, and of course the solution is to bomb it back in line. I'm not kidding. They are actually going to detonate nuclear warheads to force nature back in line, and to stop more earthquakes.I am also amazed that this production got nominated to an Emmy for best special effects. My friend and me frequently commented how horrible they looked. It is never any doubt that models and toys were used for most of the action-shots. Especially when the quake are chasing the train (Yes, it actually is. I kid you not) it is so bluntly clear we are watching a toy train-set in a set it is funny. The same goes for many cars and trucks and whenever water floods anywhere. The plot outline speaks of tsunamis too, but I never saw one though.In spite of all this, and in spite that it is really long (165 min) it never becomes too dull. Sure, you know how it will end right after the introductions are made and every event is predictable and typical of the movie, but something happens all the time. And you can sit there and be amazed how stupid they are all the time. But I never got really bored, I got to give it that at least.Finally I can't believe that it got a sequel...4/10