Customer Reviews

10.5

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Anyone liking disaster movies will enjoy this one also. There are several elements that are not geologically correct, so if that will bother you, keep that in mind. I liked the cast. Kim Delaney and Beau Bridges were the best part of the movie!

Is this a great film - no, is it enjoyable - yes. The only thing this film asks is that the viewer has an enjoyable time. The producers are not trying to teach lessons about actual earthquakes - so what if a 10.5 is impossible on the Richter scale. What it indicates is that this was a horrible earthquake. So what if the survival camp was set up on a fault line. How many people actually know where fault lines are. There is supposed to be one in my general area in New York State, but none of the general public knows where it is.

Forget all the technical stuff and just sit back and enjoy the film. Laugh at the less than perfect effects and say to yourself that you could do better with your own camcorder in the back yard.

It is almost impossible to be serious about all the disaster films so simply have fun with this one.

I remember at the time that real earthquake scientists didn't know whether to laugh or cry when this one came out. I thought it did OK for a TV disaster drama with the usual divorced parents and their difficulties (except in this case Mom is governor of the state), the brilliant young scientist with the radical, but correct, theory about the quakes- and the tough boss who doesn't believe at first but comes to his senses and ultimately saves the day.
I think the idea of deep faults has now been proven (the writers did say they did their research on the internet)but that idea of fusing them with nuclear blasts doesn't work for me, especially when done at depths of only a few hundred feet. I'd think that trying to fuse something like that would only make it worse either by REALLY cutting things loose or actually fusing and letting pressures build up even more.
What sap would put an evacuee camp on a faultline as they did in this movie?, that was actually the dumbest thing in the whole thing.
The FX were generally good although the quicksand that John Schneider got caught up in looked fake and the breakup of the Golden Gate Bridge did have a model look to it.

I personally enjoyed this somewhat long, but action filled movie. Being a fan of disaster films going all the way back to Earthquake and The Towering Inferno, I was surprised at how much I liked it.
Sure, there's the know-it-all geologist and the last minute solution, but the ending is not as predictable as some other disater movies.
I thought the drama, special effects and editing were above average. It your looking for destruction this movie might be for you.

Although the possibility of a 10.5 earthquake is minimal,and would be far more damaging that shown in the movie, this turned out to be an enjoyable piece of work. A fast moving plot from the word go, it has all the elements of a top rate disaster film. The special effects and character casting are on par with Earthquake, one of the first disaster movie of this scale. Mr, Bridges, like Mr. Heston, were by far the best choice of many fine actors and in my opinion could be the only choice for these parts.
From a scientific point however, a 10.5 quake would have devistating effects felt from the west to the east coast with far more personal tragic outcomes than were portayed.
Overall, a very good movie for those who like a fast mover.

One must give credit to the makers of the 2004 NBC-TV 2-part movie 10.5--they do give us plenty of spectacular special effects in the story of the entire West Coast being reshaped by a chain of enormously destructive earthquakes. What they DON'T give us, however, is a plot that stands up to any close scrutiny for more than a few minutes at the most, and usually no more than a few seconds.

Kim Delaney is the maverick seismologist who insists that there are interlocking earthquake faults ready to erupt and break much of the West Coast away from the rest of the United States--a fear magnified by quakes that topple the Space Needle in Seattle, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Then there is the dreaded southeastern edge of the infamous San Andreas Fault Zone, which passes less than 80 miles from Los Angeles. And unless drastic measures of the W.M.D. kind are tried to repair the fault line, more than Hell will break loose.

Obviously the special effects work was what attracted large viewers to their TVs in May 2004 to watch this $20 million spectacular, and with good reason; the effects ARE the reason to watch it. Beyond all that, however, a good cast which includes Fred Ward, John Schneider, and Beau Bridges, is left out to dry with lousy dialogue, melodramatic situations that wouldn't even have passed muster in any of the disaster films of the 1970s, least of all the 1974 specatcular EARTHQUAKE, and a thoroughly implausible premise.

Still, for the special effects, if nothing else, I am giving this three stars. The scenes of Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles all being eaten alive by the ground beneath them are the real reason that "10.5" works at all.

Loved it. Well done for a TV movie. As with all disaster flicks parts are a little cheesy, but this one less so than most.

Which version of "10.5" were all of you watching? Yes I will admit it wasn't the greatest disaster movie out there and some of the special effects were obviously fake ( like that scene when the quake swallowed the moving train.) , but I give it 3 stars (3 as in I thought it was Ok) . From what everyone who reviewed this movie said, it made me think that it was a horrible piece of crap. I have seen better disaster movies and I have seen worse disaster movies. It must have been sort of boring to me because I fell asleep for about ½ an hour in the middle of it, but when I woke up it didn't seem like I missed anything. This movie did have the clichés you would expect from a made for TV movie, but its just one of those movies where you can sit back, shut your brain off, get a bag of popcorn, and enjoy. Don't try to anaylyse it. IT"S A FREAKING MOVIE!!!

A made for tv movie, 10.5 attempts to be the mother of all earthquake films, and on some levels, it succeeds. Even though many of the effects are obviously models, one can't deny the impact of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge and the Seattle Needle tumble to the ground. At nearly three hours long, it does have its draggy moments, and some of the dialogue is cliche and dull. However, if you take it for what it is, it far surpasses the theatrical EARTHQUAKE and isn't bad. Kim Delaney, Ivan Sergei, and Yvette Jackson do well in their roles. A lot of unknowns surfeit the cast, and some do well, others are merely bodies. John Schneider and his daughter's scenes are poorly executed, but the reunion with mother governor is touching. Veterans Beau Bridges and Fred Ward lend their solid support. The earthquakes themselves are devastating in their destruction and the end is a little far-fetched, but hey it's a movie, and for what I expected, it satisfied me.

Watching this a second time, two things struck me:

1) It didn't have the usual 5 soap stories going on, the stock everybody characters, but mainly one that was nice and concise, with the ever reliable John Schneider, and his daughter, and less the wife. plus a bit of a couple of others. So, main characters were the Earthquake experts, and the ideal President, with their everincreasing dilemma.

2) The best time to watch this is after a C grade movie that left me wanting, lacking tension (mine was Fire Serpent). In contrast 10.5 was good and clever. It always had tension with always something going on. Despite a gaping but entertaining fault or two, ha. But who hasn't got faults?

Well ok, 3 then) And this film can technically be classed as science fiction - meaning it's about science but a fantasy. No problem with an unreal event then. IF it is. And it's easy to ignore the main problem that the budget seemed to have run out at the end, with neverending scenes of people running about in varous modes of slow mo, go mo, jerk mo (18 frames p/s), and stop sound, in the earthquaking desert. That was the most disappointing part of the film, that part of the climax.

3) Once again, it showed me the viewer's attitude or state can change a movie experience. A factor rarely read in our stars.