Earthquake in Wobblevision! (Earthquake (DVD))

Member Name: adambrown400

Product:	Earthquake (DVD)
Date:	05/05/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: some amusing deaths

Disadvantages: some poor SFX

Earthquake is a film I've seen many times, but after buying a book 'Films of the 70's' it came up a as a must see. So I added it to my lovefilm list and waiting for it to arrive.

Earthquake was probably the biggest of a glut of 70's disaster movies. The Poseidon Adventure, Airport, The Towering Inferno, The Cassandra Crossing and The Swarm were big budget extravaganzas before the era of quality summer blockbusters like Star Wars. They employed a dazzling array of multi-talented (ahem) guest stars, most of whom hadn't been in movies for decades. It wasn't until Airplane broke the mould showing how ludicrous these films were for them to put to a stop. However, Roland Emmerich seems to have taken up the mantle recently.

The basic plot of all of these movies is: throw a load of disparate characters into an extreme situation and see how they cope. Some die, some survive and that's about it. These films are reliant on their special effects more than the acting or script, so depending on the budget this can be a success or it can fail miserably.

Earthquake's main action hero is Charlton Heston, architect supreme who is in a failing marriage to Ava Gardener. He is also seeing Geneviève Bujold, an aspiring actress with a young son. Added to the mix is close to quitting cop George Kennedy, Evil Keneivel-like stuntman Richard Roundtree and Heston's boss Lorne Greene. Each of them are caught up in the Earthquake in different ways, with their lives criss-crossing throughout the film.

The earthquake itself is handled pretty well for the time they were made in. The special effects are pretty rudimentary by today's standards with a lot of matte painting backgrounds and cheap 70's blood. One of the worst effects has to be the strange warping screen that looks like a reflection of a building on a piece of Perspex being bent back and forwards by Rolf Harris. There lots of shaky camera work going on with people falling over (usually a la Star Trek, in the wrong direction). Theres plenty of polystyrene boulders bouncing off people's heads as well.

The miniature buildings that are destroyed also look very wobbly, with some on stilts looking like Coco Pops boxes when they mall down the mountainside. The best effects are probably the scene where the dam breaks and the city is flooded. The water doesn't look too much like a bath full of liquid, and the destruction is pretty epic.

There are some quite terrifying scenes as well, when the lift breaks and snaps and falls down the building. Most of the people insides legs snap and red blood fills the screen. I remember seeing that before when I was young and being quite shocked.

Earthquake is an interesting oddity now. Its special effects really don't hold up to today's standards and are pretty laughable, but the intent to make a good film was there. I enjoyed the scenes with George Kennedy who comes across pretty well. The cameo by Walter Matthau is pointless and doesn't really fit in particularly well with the rest of the film.

The filmmakers also need to be congratulated for not giving the film a happy ending either. If the film were to be made again today I expect the hero would save everyone from dying and everything would nicely fit together at the end, in this film that doesn't happen, and in that way I suppose it's a bit more realistic.
Earthquake is available from play.com for £6.73.

Summary: Not bad 70's disaster flick