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 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.

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.

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.

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.