10.5: Apocalypse

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!

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.

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.

Actually, I think the special effects were done fairly well, considering the scope of what they were trying to portray.

I mean it wasn't of Star Wars caliber, but it was entertaining, and most frightening.

As with most TV disaster movies you are limited to the extent you are able to take the special effects.

I felt the actors portrayed to the best of their ability the feelings that one might encounter, if facing this type of terrible disaster.

After what happened in real life to New Orleans and other southern states, and what they face each year from Hurricanes and Tornadeos alone, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.