10.5: Apocalypse

For some reason 10.5 (2004) isn't available in my location. What's that about?

I watched this movie many years ago. It's so bad that it turned out to be good.

Funny in an unintended way.

Funny as in ha ha and funny as in strange.

If you watch this movie, follow the blue folder. It has a bigger part than any of the actors.

This is an escapist entertainment featuring a cast of good actors and some commendable production values - all rendered pointless by the director's incessant (and I do mean incessant) abuse of the zoom lens. Whose idea was that? The director? The director of photography? Who holds the blame? It became so nauseating that it effectively spoiled everybody else's hard work. The director is not a novice and yet he allows this same grievous mistake to sink this film as he did the previous 10.5 disaster TV movie. There seems to be a mistaken notion that manipulating the zoom lens equates with directorial style. Jess Franco would even be embarrassed.

This film makes a tremendous amateur blunder from from the very beginning: it assumes the audience has seen (what I understand to be) the first film. (I hadn't.) There is no build-up, no dramatic lead-in, no preparing the viewer for what is about to happen... no indication there even WAS a prior film. In the first 60 seconds this drops cataclysm right into our laps with no preparation, no explanation, no warning. BAM! Here's an earthquake. BAM! Here's a tidal wave! BAM! Here's a volcano blowing its top.

Same holds true for the characters. There are no references to the prior film, no flashbacks to explain the existing story, nothing to prepare the audience for characters that pop out of nowhere and we're just supposed to magically understand their backgrounds and issues and empathize with what's going on.

The result: I paused this turkey after 15 minutes of ridiculously bad directing, came to IMDB and read the reviews, then shut it off... glad that I didn't waste three hours on what I'd already figured to be a prime example of how not to make a movie. Thanks IMDB, for helping me not turn that loser 15 minutes into a total loser evening.

What is wrong with director John Lafia? Any chance of this film being any good was destroyed by the constant zoom in and zoom out. I have not seen many home movies filmed this bad. The constant zooming was so annoying that after an hour I had to turn it off. Of the hour I did watch the acting and dialog was unbearable. I really can't say if it got any better but the first hour was dreadful!

What is wrong with the directors in Hollywood now days? Why do they insist that all action scenes need to be filmed with a shaking camera or zooming all over the place (like MI:3)?

I liked the old days when good acting and action carried the scene not the blurred shaky camera work of today!

This certainly was better than I expected from Filmrise, and considering it is a TV miniseries, I expected it was designed to give excitement, danger and entertainment. And that is about all it was. It is full of cliches, as if they ran down a check list of what audiences might expect. They wrap it in pseudo-science terms, and naturally have a discredited scientist as the person who is the one who can explain what is happening. There currently are major film franchises that have action as far fetched as in this series, and they make a lot of money. Even when they were supposed to be witnessing actual locations, they failed. King's Peak in Utah is nothing like they pretended to show. And they laid on the drama by having some take risks that no sane person would ever do just to keep up the excitement for the audience. They threw in a lot of shouting and screaming in the third installment for good measure. In the trapped scene in the Las Vegas casino, when it was insisted they had to go up to get out, it reminded me of a certain movie about an overturned ocean liner.