10.5: Apocalypse

scientific credibility, you might think that the producers would have at least done a good job filming this.

Alas, no. The CGI are good for a TV film, which isn't saying much, but the ENTIRE film (virtually every scene) is filmed in that modern, irritating "zoom-o-matic" style of cinematography. In order to lend a sense of action or reality, the camera zooms in or out every few seconds. The whole film looks like Uncle Ernie trying his new 8 mm camera out at Christmas, 1978. I timed one shot of the President's daughter talking to a doctor. It was 8 seconds long and had 5 zooms in it.

A very, very dumb film made very, very poorly.

Gets a couple of points for the laugh-at-it value.

It picks up a few minutes after the end of the first installment. A major earthquake has just annihilated part of southern California, clear out to Barstow, with millions of casualties. We see some guys in Vegas, only 150 miles from Barstow, who would have certainly felt such an immense quake; and witnessed news coverage of it. What are they doing? Preparing for a possible danger to Vegas? Mourning the victims of the disaster? No, they're playing poker. The father of the heroine in both movies is winning, so that must be why he's not concerned with his daughter's fate much.

That's only the beginning. We see President Bo Bridges, still looking like he's suffering stomach wall spasms (like in the first movie). The scientist girl goes to discover more seismic problems are coming. Then an inconsiderate quake interrupts her dad's poker game. This opens the obligatory Poseidon Adventure rip off sequence, complete with all the disaster movie trimmings: arguing, wrecked staircases, aftershocks at just the wrong moment, panicky person gets killed, one of the rescuers is related to one of the fleeing survivors, etc.

Then the scientists watch as a major fault cuts across the heartland. Good special effects here, but the story line remains ludicrous. What's right in the way of the fault? A nuke power plant, what else. And so it goes.

Outrageous, but fun.

This movie is not even remotely scientifically accurate. I'm pretty sure the writers haven't even passed basic high school earth science nor ever watched a PBS documentary on earthquakes to have gotten pretty much everything wrong. There are also many, many moments that were beyond even basic common sense, and I was yelling at my TV. The acting was pretty decent, and the actors were gorgeous and/or stately. Some of the lines were pure cheese, however. However, it's far from being the worse disaster movie or mini-series that I've ever seen, and it was a decent enough way to send a few hours on a rainy day. Don't expect to learn anything about a) science, b) surviving a disaster, or c) health care, and take it for what it is: escapist fantasy.

It is said that if you gave a thousand monkeys typewriters, eventually they will write Shakespeare... Guess what. They aren't done yet.

This movie or for those into PURE science fiction. Things that happen in this movie could only happen in a fantasy world. They should have added a laugh track and called it a comedy. I wish writers would try to write a disaster movie based on something that could really happen, but turn it up just a bit. A 10.5 earthquake sounds horrific (which it would be) but the things that they lead you to believe that could happen if there were one is just too far out there.

The only reason to watch this is to see the CGI.

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.