Daybreak, le métro de la mort

In modern day LA some bright city planner came up with the idea for a mass transit subway system in downtown LA. If you build it, they will come.......

Inevitably, an earthquake shakes the Los Angeles area, and hapless victims are trapped inside the subway tunnel. Ted McGinley is the transit maintenance scheduler - conveniently trapped as well, so that he can come to the rescue.

Sub plots include a dirty deputy mayor who wants the folks in the tunnel to stay put so they don't find the chemical waste he's been hiding down there while pocketing the disposal fees. Roy Scheider is the head of the transit authority, and deserves better. He makes the most of what he has to work with.

Mix equal parts of the Poseidon Adventure and Daylight, mix in some really bad dialogue and acting = Daybreak.

A movie that never should have been made. The acting is really bad. Everything is so embarrassing in this movie. It is really weak. Everything in it is poor. How do they make this nonsense?

I am certain Roy Scheider must have sacked his agent after this movie. In fact, this movie was such a disgrace to that any respectable agent would have left the industry to become a use car salesperson. Here is an actor nominated for two Academy Awards, reduced to lines like, `Be careful down there!'

But there are so many people to blame for this abomination that it seems an impossible task to find any one person to blame. Geri Barger claims `writing credits.' I assume this is taking credit for the order in which every cliché in the history of disaster films is placed. There was certainly no original dialogue in this movie. In fact, nothing in this movie was original.

As in any movie where a group of people are stranded, there is the loudmouth who wants to pick a fight. The inevitable bimbo girlfriend of the loudmouth because they always seem to get a girl. The woman who has had problems with men and the man who is in charge but has something haunting him from the past. And, let's not forget a genius geek teen that naturally has all of the answers that save the day.

But so much of this movie is so implausible and so poorly acted that it left me with tears of laughter.

There has to be a worse movie than this - R.O.T.O.R. and CHICKEN PARK spring to mind... Nah, this takes the cake! So God-awful amateurish, trite and laughable, I would think any first-year film student would be failed on this effort. Some wannabe Bruckenheimer has figured "Lets re-make DAYLIGHT with a subway wreck...Oh and by the way guys, we only got $500 tops!" I could have made a better and more entertaining film with my old cam-corder, the postman and the moth-eaten bitser next door: CUJO 2: THE POSTMAN NEVER CALLS TWICE You're talking crap plus. Special effects so un-special as to be the laughing stock of Hollywood......make that Anchorage, Alaska! An earthquake, consisting of a camera on its side, a few hazy photographs and someone tossing dust over the lens. A train-wreck you never see. Actors can't act, a script that was hand-written on cue-cards some 10 minutes before the crew turned up......and sadly, Roy Scheider embarrassing his entire career, his agent, his family and anyone who ever attended an acting workshop.

Speaking of which, I was once asked to strip to my undies, lie on the floor and portray a rose unfurling its petals in the morning sun. "Improvise," my drama teacher said. From memory I embarrassed not only myself, but every rose that ever bloomed. STILL I topped any and every performance in this inconceivably juvenile loser of a movie.

If you paid more than $1 for this trash in any bargain-basement-bin, you've "done" your money cold!

That is how bad Daybreak is. Of course there may be some novelty value if you're in a good mood, but if you are screaming with laughter it is because of how unintentionally funny the movie in its awfulness is. Daybreak is very poorly rendered visually, it is very choppily shot and edited and the effects look as though they haven't even been finished. The sound doesn't do any favours either, coming across as bizarre and the lack of audio authenticity dilutes any terror anybody is meant to feel in this situation because the threat is instead unthreatening. The dialogue is cheesy and inane, and there is nothing exciting, surprising or suspenseful in the story with listless moments that are so ridiculous you can have £10 for each time you laughed(you'll probably find yourself at over £1000). The characters are annoying stereotypical cardboard cut-outs, especially the loudmouth constantly looking for a fight, and the acting is dire with a mixture of over and under acting and nobody even Roy Scheider can do anything with what they had to work with. In conclusion, an awful, unintentionally hilarious movie that should never have seen the light of day. 1/10 Bethany Cox