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List Price: $6.99 | | Label: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 15740
Released: August 1, 2006 |
| Our Price: $2.81 |
| Used Price: $2.56 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
10.5 Apocalypse explodes in a shockwave of thrills, blazing action and exciting special effects. Sequel to "10.5" - the highest rated miniseries of the 2003/2004 television series.
10.5: Apocalypse Reviews:
Soulless disaster movie goes through the motions 
2009-10-10 - 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'.
I have headaches half-way through the first eposide
2009-10-04 - 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.
What I thought of 10.5 Apocalypse 
2009-09-30 - As with 10.5, this movie was believable and entertaining. Although I found some characters to be a little annoying, overall performances were great.
Zero For Plausibility; 10.5 For Special Effects 
2009-07-14 - 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.
I originally was going to give two stars... 
2009-06-29 - ...just because this silly movie is one of those that has the potential to be one that's so bad it ends up being "good," i.e. trying so hard to be serious that it ends up being unintentionally hilarious. I'll leave aside the predictable plot twists (e.g. "let's all celebrate now, 'cause we've beaten it, oh wait, oh my God, turns out we're not out of the woods yet"), and the ridiculous scientific premise, 'cause after all this is supposed to be science fiction/disaster/adventure, and there's no law written saying that reality suspension is necessarily bad in such a movie. A lot of the comedy potential is in the nauseatingly petty, overacted middle-school drama going on between supposedly adult characters--which they somehow have the time and energy to indulge in even while the entire world is crumbling around them. This lends itself to derisive laughter as well as cynical contempt for all concerned--you might find yourself rooting for the ever-expanding crack in the earth to swallow them all up and give a nice, juicy, self-satisfied belch. This movie could thus end up being a cult classic.
However, all this comedic potential is ruined by the annoying, amateurish camera work--the entire movie feels like it was filmed by some 8-year old who just discovered the zoom function on his parents' video camera. In and out, in and out, in a little further, whoops, a little too much, so pan back out just a smidge, then zoom in again so fast it makes your head spin. This goes on in EVERY SINGLE SCENE, the idea being, I suppose, to create "drama" or "tension." But such a gimicky technique is simply being used here to try to artificially infuse drama into the most banal of scenes. In this it fails miserably, succeeding only in creating intense irritation and utter loathing for the cameraman, the editors, the director, the producers, indeed the entire movie. My suggestion: don't waste your money on this cheesy dreck--even only one star is too much for this clunker-- if you feel like you can't live without seeing it, wait until it appears again on one or more of the cable channels--which it seems to do with startlingly contemptible regularity. And if you are the sort of person who DOES feel like they NEED to see a movie like this, then, well, I'm at a total loss for words...
