This movie provided a bit of entertainment, but was fairly predictable. I found it fascinating that every time a scene was shown from the ground level, you'd hear sirens and air horns from the rigs en-route. Seems to me that at a certain point, all the necessary equipment would be there, and you'd not have any more en-route. Also, the effects and explosions were ok - some appeared to have no rhyme or reason as to why an explosion occurred. For example, glass is broken in a window you can see thru. There is no fire behind the window, however suddenly the window shatters, and the room explodes. No ignition source was shown, and although spontaneous combustion is a possibility, I've only seen a similar situation with an already pre-existing flame. The smoke effects were nice, but if you really wanted to go for realism, the smoke shouldn't be gray or white, it should be black and thick. Outside shots of the hotel showed black smoke, inside shots showed gray and white smoke. Outside shots of the hotel also showed smoke rising straight up, when in fact, the story claimed 50mph winds.
I also found it interesting that although you had a major incident at a high-rise hotel in Las Vegas, I didn't see many, if any, police officers. Crowd control was non-existent, which allowed the reporters to trample thru the fireground, and somehow, ordinary citizens were allowed into the incident commander's area, to hear everything that was going on. This was obviously done for dramatic effect, and would NEVER happen in real life.
A few notes about the firefighters as well. The main shots of the firefighters in action were showing them running around on stairs with a charged line. I do find it hard to believe that they took a single charged line up 30 floors... hoses just aren't that long. If in fact they were using the standpipes to connect to, they would have a length of hose to connect up to the standpipe, and be bringing with them an uncharged line. Most of the firefighting it seemed was being done with CO2 extinguishers. Also, it seemed like most of the time, they were running past a free burning fire, stopping once in a while to spray a little water. For as much water that was supposively coming off the building onto the press reporter, I didn't see any firefighting happening.
Overall, the movie was ok... the effects were pretty, if not well placed, and the factual items of the firefighting were a little scarce on the details. I'd say watch it if nothing else is on.
