Magnitude 10,5 : L'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.

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.

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.

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.