Nova York em Pânico

This movie was shown here (Israel) on the Hallmark channel in Dec 01. As a former New Yorker, and watching it in this post-9/11 era, it was truly eerie, especially since in this film, one of the few sites left standing and untouched was... the Twin Towers.

This movie is based on a novel by one of NY's most familiar faces, former NBC newscaster, and my 'regular' source of info in my NY days, Chuck Scarborough. Perhaps only a real New Yorker could have imagined and foretold such scenes and, knowing the essence of a true New Yorker, written such speeches that eventually proved so prophetic and so amazingly close to reality. Besides the story and text, the scenes and special effects were awesome (even though you *know* looking at them that it's not real).

This will no doubt prove to be the first in many similar disaster films that will be made about NY, be they natural or terrorist, but since this was done three years "before," it makes it more prophecy than mere fiction, and worth seeing.

The disaster films of the 1990's excluding of course " Volcano" (1997 Tommy Lee Jones.) are just downright bad the special effects are horrible and the characters are pathetic. If you are going to make a disaster film you need to make them epic. If you are going to make a movie about an Eartthquake in new York then for god's sake show New York getting destroyed. The Earthquake sequence in this movie leaves you feeling jipped when it is all over with, and then it leaves you with pathetic characters that you don't care much about for the rest of the film. Another major problem with this film and most of the disaster films of the 90's is that there is absolutely no build up what so ever. If you watch the disaster films of the 1970's there was always a feeling for the first twenty minutes or so of those films that something really bad was going to happen, an impending doom that got you more involved in those films. That is certainly not the case nowadays and especially with " Earthquake In New York". If you want to see a good disaster film most definetly watch " The Towering Inferno" or " Earthquake" and if you are interested in a more updated disaster film catch " Volcano" with Tommy Lee Jones that movie truly delivers the goods.

I'd avoided this movie for years. Unlike the writers, I understand the geology under NYC, so I was expecting it to be every bit as bad as "Volcano", based on a similarly silly premise. Finally, last night I needed some mindless entertainment to help me get to sleep so I tuned in.

Yes, the premise is just as silly as it sounds. However, the writers, while technically clueless, did craft one of the best disaster flick scripts I've ever seen. The acting is uniformly excellent, and the direction, after the typically slow disaster flick setup, was taut and effective. The special effects were quite decent for TV - certainly better than most SciFi channel made-for-TV films. Unlike "Volcano", the characters are sympathetic and believable. After the viewer has swallowed the basic premise, everything else goes down well. Altogether a very involving film, which is, after all, the goal of all disaster flicks.

Given a chance, I will watch it again (I missed the first 10 minutes or so). Heartily recommended for disaster flick fans, conditionally recommended for everyone else.

For those of you who enjoyed the 'disaster' movies of the 70's such as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, you'll love this movie. Although it's quite long (just under three hours), my attention never wavered. It had several sub-plots going on simultaneously, including a love story, the resolution of an old rivalry, and a parent's fight to absolve herself of guilt over a two-year accident. Yet the storyline was never blurred or confusing and the characters seemed real to me. Perhaps most importantly, not all the little sub-plots had fairy-tale endings; some ended happily and some did not, but you don't know which is which until it happens. All in all, this is a movie well worth seeing!

I bought this on DVD because it was cheap and I couldn't find anything else, but I pretty much thought it would be wasted money. But this movie is surprisingly well written, effective and does its best to avoid disaster movie clichés, albeit not always successful. Like its predecessor "EarthQuake" it focuses on the effect of a disastrous earthquake on the lives of several groups of people whom struggle to survive and find loved ones amongst the devastation. The stories range in degrees of interests, ranging from engrossing to rather weak and familiar. The one that stands out the most is about a pampered rich girl and a young Russian taxi driver whom takes it upon himself to protect her. The contrast is interesting as she finds herself in a totally alien world of sudden death and chaos while her companion seems wearily used to such calamities, and instead of panicking he immediately tries to regain control of their situation. As far as the special effects go it doesn't have all the flashy effects other quake movies do but what it does show is pretty convincing, they seemed to realize their own production limitations and wisely try worked around them without pushing it too far. 7 out of 10, escapes the "made for TV" curse and is overall worth viewing.