Leofwine_draca
THE GREAT LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE is a TV movie exploration of a familiar topic: an earthquake striking a large metropolis, as seen in EARTHQUAKE and SAN ANDREAS. The problem with this film is that it runs no less than three hours, and it has absolutely no reason to do so. The plot is more than familiar from pretty much every other disaster movie you can think of, with an expert scientist predicating an upcoming disaster but ending up disbelieved by everybody around her. Meanwhile various other assorted characters are introduced, from reporters to cops, government officials and ordinary people. The earthquake itself doesn't strike until more than two hours of the running time has passed, although the special effects are decent and there's some good drama arising from the situation. But this really didn't need to be three hours.
mattkratz
This movie wasn't bad, as it dealt with the biggest earthquake Los Angeles could have. The film focuses equally on the preparation the city makes and the actual earthquake itself. All in all, not too bad, with decent performances.** 1/2 out of ****
virek213
Forget for a second that the acting and the dialogue are not exactly first-rate; this isn't Shakespeare or Spielberg. This 1990 made-for-TV film does focus on an all-too-plausible disaster for those of us, like myself, who live in Southern California--a cataclysmic earthquake tearing the region apart.Irritating subplots aside (Robert Ginty's greedy developer engaging in what I'd call "Quakegate"; Joe Spano's emergency management chief torn between Ginty and Kerns; Richard Masur's Geraldo-like tabloid TV reporter), THE BIG ONE is just too effective in its depiction of destruction on a scale not seen in a long time. Kerns' performance as seismologist Claire Winslow is clearly modeled off of CalTech scientists Lucy Jones and Kate Hutton. The film's science is also pretty straight-on, especially when one realizes that the quakes that have shook up Southern California since the 1971 Sylmar event have not occurred along the dreaded San Andreas Fault but on faults of which little or nothing is known about.So whatever plot pratfalls it has, THE BIG ONE still works as an ultimate science fiction/disaster movie, at least from the science angle.
jhaggardjr
"The Big One: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake" is a chilling, well-made disaster film that was made-for-TV and aired on NBC back in the fall of 1990 as a two-part movie. Joanna Kerns (star of TV's "Growing Pains") stars as a seismologist who worries that the earthquake of the title is going to strike Los Angeles. But before she can make her prediction, she crosses paths with her family members, co-workers, and city officials. The movie is long at times (this review is based on the entire four hour movie that ran when it premiered on NBC, not the shortened home video version) but it kept me interested and entertained through its entire four hours. The second time the movie aired on NBC they cut an hour of footage and shortened it to a three hour film. That version was pretty good too. But then I saw the home video version with half the movie gone. This is the version to forget about. Stick with either the three hour version or the full-length four hour version if you can find it on TV.The three and four hour versions: *** (out of four)The home video version: ** (out of four)
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