Entertaining
Added 11/13/2009
Yes, this movie has scientific inaccuracies (just about every disaster movie has some of these) but that doesn't mean this is not an entertaining flick. I've always been a sucker for doomsday/natural disaster movies like 'The Day After Tomorrow' and this movie was no less enjoyable than the others. If you're an expert in science or whatever, shelve your knowledge to enjoy this movie. One of the reasons I love these movies is because of the special effects. Seeing Lake Mead boil and overflow the Hoover Dam was one of the sweet spots in this movie. It's pretty good for a TV movie and a definitely entertaining flick. If you like earthquakes, ever-increasing disaster, great special effects, and the premise of a world that will he changed forever, then you should enjoy this.
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Soulless disaster movie goes through the motions
Added 10/10/2009
10.5
(USA/Germany/Canada - 2003)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
TV soundtrack: Dolby Digital
Once upon a time, US network television produced memorable, must-see miniseries' like ROOTS, FATAL VISION, HELTER SKELTER and THE ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS, movies with real grit and integrity. Nowadays, they produce rubbish like '10.5', an unmitigated disaster in every sense of the word, in which an earthquake in Seattle triggers a sequence of equally devastating tremors - each one worse than the last - which seismologist Kim Delaney believes will culminate in a massive, landscape-altering quake along the West Coast. Naturally, the l-o-n-g bits between disaster set-pieces (including the destruction of San Francisco and a spectacular climactic deluge) are populated with boring characters mouthing the usual soap opera clichés, while the scenes of destruction are as dramatic as they are scientifically unsound (ie. there's no such thing as a '10.5' earthquake; the Golden Gate Bridge was built to withstand even the most violent tremor, and will NOT collapse during seismic activity; nuclear explosions CANNOT seal faults in the earth's surface, etc.).
The script is utterly predictable throughout (virtually every character is divided from their loved ones, either geographically or emotionally, yet the quakes bring them together in the end and, yep, make them all better people as a consequence - puh-leeze!!), and Beau Bridges plays the President with such overstated 'fortitude' and 'compassion', he comes off looking like some godawful televangelist, and is just as convincing. Even worse, David Foreman's largely hand-held camera-work - a swirling mess of zooms and zip-pans, borrowed from TV's "NYPD Blue" and designed to convey a sense of realism where none exists - seems calculated to drive viewers up the wall. The much-heralded visual effects are only intermittently successful, and most of 'em look like what they are - CGI images (EARTHQUAKE, SAN FRANCISCO and THE BIG ONE: THE GREAT LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE contain much better depictions of widespread devastation). Appalling stuff, directed by John Lafia (CHILD'S PLAY 2 - 'nuff said), and promoted under the titles '10.5: Apocalypse' and 'Earthquake 10.5'.
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I have headaches half-way through the first eposide
Added 10/4/2009
Even though the storyline, casting, acting, and special effects are okay, the ways the cameras are moving and zooming in and out, much like amateurs taking home videos without good image stabilization, give me headaches. The cameras zoom in and out a lot even within a split second. I don't understand what effects the director wants to create besides giving people headaches.
Also, for quite a lot of shots, there is significant and intolerable snowy noise.
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What I thought of 10.5 Apocalypse
Added 9/30/2009
As with 10.5, this movie was believable and entertaining. Although I found some characters to be a little annoying, overall performances were great.
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Zero For Plausibility; 10.5 For Special Effects
Added 7/14/2009
There isn't a whole lot new that can be said about the 2006 two-part miniseries 10.5: APOCALYPSE that hasn't been said about its 2004 "prequel" (which was just 10.5), except that it's a special effects extravaganza come true, with no fidelity to scientific plausibility. This time, an all-star cast, including Dana Delany, Beau Bridges (as the President), and Frank Langella, find that the catastrophic earthquakes that leveled Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle in the original miniseries are growing so intense that they will eventually split the continental shelf asunder, and cause parts of the United States to separate. This, of course, requires radical and (naturally) implausible action.
John Lafia, who both directed and co-wrote both this film and the original, went to great pains to declare both films to be entertainment, not to be believed. It's just very hard, however, to get past the level of implausibility that is thrown the viewer's way in 10.5: APOCALYPSE. As in the original, this implausibility, combined with rather lame dialogue and melodrama that makes even the much-maligned 1974 sci-fi/disaster opus EARTHQUAKE seem like Stanley Kubrick or Steven Spielberg helmed it, weighs everything down to a large degree.
But then again, the biggest reason for the existence of 10.5: APOCALPYSE, as was the case with the original, is the incredible special effects destruction sequences, this time involving Las Vegas and Houston; and the rescue sequences are done with a certain measure of credibility. This is, as advertised, a very uneven flick, and definitely rates a zero for plausibility; but as a special effect's lover's paradise, it does indeed rate a 10.5.
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