Armageddon (1998) – Review

It’s not unusual for two studios to launch similarly themed movies at roughly the same time, back in 1997 we had the Tommy Lee Jones film Volcano up against Dante’s Peak starring Pierce Brosnan duking it out in cinemas, and then a year later the Meteor disaster film Deep Impact opened, which was then quickly followed by this Michael Bay blockbuster Armageddon, a film that tried to answer the question “Could Bruce Willis punch an asteroid hard enough to save the Earth?”

First of all, let's talk about the plot, which seems to imply that the best way to stop an asteroid from colliding with Earth is to send a bunch of oil drillers into space to blow it up with a nuclear bomb. Sure, why not? Clearly, NASA has no idea how to handle space stuff so they have to rely on a group of goofy roughnecks who spend their days drinking beer and drilling for oil. In fact, while on set, Ben Affleck even asked Michael Bay 'Why is it easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts, than it is to train astronauts to become oil drillers?” and he was simply told to “Shut the fuck up.” This is a sensible attitude if you are an egomaniac like Michael Bay, who never met a slow-motion camera move he didn’t like, as he is a man who would never let things like facts or logic get in the way of his filmmaking style, but that doesn’t solve the problem of the film’s biggest issue, which is its inability to make a lick of sense.

Note: Like most movies about asteroids threatening the Earth, which our heroes must somehow prevent, the film still requires some “disaster porn” so we’ll always get smaller meteorites hitting the Earth to give us some cool scenes of destruction.

The movie opens with Charlton Heston’s narration explaining how 65 million years ago an asteroid wiped out most of the life on Earth and how it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. We then flash forward to the orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis being destroyed by a meteor shower which is then followed by more entering the atmosphere and bombarding New York City. From NASA Mission Director Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) we learn that a Texas-sized asteroid will impact Earth in 18 days, causing an event that will once again wipe out all life on the planet and the only way to stop it is for someone to fly up there and a drill a hole into the asteroid, into which they will insert and detonate a nuclear bomb to destroy the asteroid. But who could accomplish such a perilous mission? How about a ragtag bunch of misfits led by the world’s number one deep-core driller, Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), who will beat all the odds in every dramatically clichéd way imaginable?

The Bad News Bears go to Outer Space.

The cast of Armageddon is rather fun, if not at all believable in their respective careers as Harry’s employees are not just regular blue-collar Joes, not at all, they are an eccentric collection of oddballs who will attempt to bring humour into this rather dire situation. First, we have Chick Chapel (Will Patton) who is Harry’s best friend and right-hand man, then there are geologists Rockhound (Steve Buscemi) and Oscar Choice (Owen Wilson) and drillers Bear Curlene (Michael Clarke Duncan), Freddie Noonan (Clark Brolly), Max Lennert (Ken Campbell) and finally we have A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck) who has been secretly dating Harry's daughter Grace (Liv Tyler), something that Harry will strenuously object to in a very volatile manner. But why exactly did the filmmakers think a romance would be a key ingredient to the success of this film, simply put, James Cameron’s Titanic had just reaped a shit-ton of money at the box office and it was beefed up with a romantic subplot, so clearly romance equals boffo box office. Watching this film it’s not surprising to learn that nine different writers worked on the script and this forced romance stuff is just another example of how big studios work.

Ben Affleck would later go on to save the world in Pearl Harbor.

Simply put, the biggest issue with Armageddon is the script as the dialogue is often cheesy and contrived with poorly developed characters, and while the film attempts to create an emotional connection between the audience and these people it fails to do so due to the lack of depth and nuance, a typical trait found in many of Bay’s films. The movie relies too heavily on cliches and stereotypes, with the characters falling into typical Hollywood archetypes and they are nothing more than a collection of over-the-top characters who are so ridiculous that they make the characters in Dodgeball look like sane and balanced people. Bruce Willis plays your typical tough and no-nonsense leader of the drilling team, with Ben Affleck providing the counterpoint as the cocky young buck who thinks he knows everything while trying to bang the boss’s daughter, but then we have Steve Buscemi as the wisecracking weirdo who is somehow an expert in everything from astrophysics to deep-sea fishing, sure, that makes sense. This leaves the audience feeling indifferent to the characters' fates, which undermines the film's overall impact.

Steve Buscemi giving his most restrained performance yet.

Stray Observations:

• Harry fires A.J. for sleeping with his daughter and then the next time we see him he’s got his own drilling company, but as this couldn’t have been more than a day or two later I’m not sure how that’s even remotely feasible.
• If the asteroid is actually “The size of Texas” there would be nothing we here on Earth could throw at it that would do any good. It would require the energy equivalent of billions of times the current nuclear stockpile to destroy it.
• Despite Truman’s claim that they didn’t spot the asteroid because “It’s a big ass sky” space observation technology would have definitely noticed this particular meteor shower before it even reached 1,000 miles from Earth, also, an asteroid the size of Texas would appear bright enough in the sky for NASA to see it coming months away from a possible impact.
• Truman asks the NASA doctor “Can they physically survive the trip? That’s all I need to know here.” But if that’s the case what was the point of all the psychological testing they were put through?
• You can play a drinking game where you take a drink every time you see an American flag, of course, as this is a Michael Bay this could result in alcohol poisoning.
• The nuclear detonation turns this Texas-sized asteroid into hundreds, if not thousands of smaller meteors, that are now headed for Earth. Many of these would breach the atmosphere and cause untold devastation.

Lucky for us, our heroes are able to ignore things like physics and geology.

As you might expect from a Michael Bay film, Armageddon is a visual delight, with stunning special effects and jaw-dropping action sequences that will leave you breathless, of course, if you are looking for a science fiction movie that is remotely believable, or even makes sense, then this not the film for you as the plot on hand is so absolutely ludicrous and makes a film like Battlefield Earth look like a thoughtful view of the future. And let's not forget the emotional moments, which are so cheesy and overblown that they'll make you cringe with laughter. Liv Tyler's teary-eyed goodbye to her dad, as he heads off to save the world, is a particular highlight, as is the scene where Affleck and Tyler make out in front of a giant American flag - everyone takes a drink. I will admit, there were some good moments in this film and I particularly liked the character of the Russian cosmonaut Lev Andropov (Peter Stormare) who in a better film, would have been the hero.

Peter Stormare is the biggest gem this movie has to offer.

Despite these flaws, Armageddon does have some redeeming qualities. The movie has some truly impressive special effects-laden action sequences and it also has a very memorable soundtrack, featuring the hit song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith. While the film falls short in terms of scientific accuracy, character development and representation it is certainly a visually remarkable film, it simply lacks the substance and nuance required to be truly great. In short, Armageddon is a hilarious disaster movie that is so ridiculous that it’s almost impossible not to get at least some fun out of it while watching all the insanity unfold. Just don't try to make sense of it, or you'll end up with a headache.

Note: NASA actually shows this film during their management training program, with new managers given the task of trying to spot as many errors as possible. At least 168 have been found. So say what you will about this film, at least it’s helping out the space program, even if it’s in a “God, don’t do it that way!” manner.

Volcano (1997) – Review

Mother Nature throws some pretty mean left hooks when it comes to disasters, from hurricanes to earthquakes she can be bloody terrifying, but there is something both regal and terrifying about an erupting volcano and in 1997 Hollywood gave us not one but two films with this spectacular geological event as its centrepiece.  The first entry was the Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton film, Dante's Peak, where a volcanologist tried to save a town from its own stupidity, and the other was simply titled Volcano. Strangely enough, that movie doesn’t even have an actual volcano in it, instead, what we get here is more of a very persistent lava flow than a volcano.

The plot of this particular disaster movie centers around the formation of a volcano at the La Brea Tar Pits and the heroic actions of Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones), the new director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, as he tries to deal with the crisis.  Roark is the kind of guy who refuses to stay on vacation, leaving his daughter Kelly (Gabby Hoffman) when earthquakes start hitting the city so he can go be The Man. But our hero isn't alone, he is aided by plucky seismologist Dr. Amy Barnes (Anne Heche) who believes that a volcano may be forming beneath the city, so it's up to her and Roark to save the city. As with most disaster movies the actual disaster is often a simple backdrop to the “human drama” and Mick Jackson’s Volcano is no exception as not only do we get people being all heroic and stuff in the face of nature’s fury, which is to be expected in this kind of story, but we also have a racist cop arresting a black man simply because he was demanding that the firemen come to his neighbour instead of wasting time saving art galleries and a couple of malls.  But there’s more, we also have real estate developer Norman Calder (John Corbett) who wants his wife, Dr. Jaye Calder (Jaqueline Kim), to quit her job taking care of poor people and, instead, work on tennis elbows and nose jobs at a more upscale hospital.

At what point do we start rooting for the volcano?

We also get conflict between Dr. Barnes and Stan Olber (John Carroll Lynch), the chairman of the Los Angeles MTA who refuses to close down the subway lines because she can’t prove that the seismic events are a threat to his passengers – unlike the asshole rich husband he does pay for this bit of hubris with his life – but even Roark has a hard time believing that they’re dealing with a possible volcano and he’s more concerned about his angsty daughter, but to be fair, she seems to have the survival instincts of a lemming so his concerns are not without merit. The film also gives some comedy banter between Roark and his assistant, Emmitt Reese (Don Cheadle), who is stuck back at headquarters because Roark refuses to leave the field as he is “A man of action!” and can’t be bothered pushing pencils or talking to the Chief of Police.  Sadly, his ability to solve any problem he faces is undercut by his overtly macho nature.

"Could you be sexist and condescending to me, that would be a big help.”

The film climaxes when Amy realizes that the lava is now using the new subway line to travel beneath the city and she determines that the flow of fast-moving laving will burst out in a violent eruption in about thirty minutes, right below Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Beverly Center, and right where Roark had sent his daughter to be safe.  Mother Nature does love irony. Roark asks for the city’s demolition squad to bring down a high-rise building to create a blockage but one of the police officers rightfully points out “That’s a precision drop, that takes days to plan” and Roark tells him “Set a speed record” and because if you say something with enough earnestness it doesn’t matter if what you asked for is ridiculously impossible it will work. That's just science.  Yet that’s not enough drama for this movie, no siree, we also have to deal with Kelly trying to retrieve a little boy she was looking after, who had wandered off own because the lemming trait spreads like a virus, and this leads to the two of them ending up right in the direct path of the collapsing building. Roark saves them by running four hundred yards in about ten seconds flat, just so he can knock these two Darwin Award applicants backwards a couple of feet and out of harm's way.

These three survived Mother Nature’s wrath and a collapsing building, really?

Stray Observations:

• There are many moments that strain a viewer's credulity during this movie's 104-minute running time but nothing tops the director of the city's Office of Emergency Management asking, “What’s magma?” I think every boy over the age of six probably knows what magma is, so you'd think that someone whose job it is to handle disasters would know something so basic.
• In action movies cars tend to explode with the merest provocation, but in this film, cars can sink into rivers of lava without their gas tanks igniting.
• Roark has the police and firemen help him turn over a bus so that it can function as a barricade against the approaching lava, but as we’ve already seen, vehicles melt in seconds when surrounded by lava so I’m not sure this was the best use of their time.
• This movie has a hard time understanding the effects of radiant heat from fresh lava, which can be between 1,300° and 2,200° Fahrenheit because we see a fire hose burst into flames one second yet our lead actors, who are right on top of it, are just fine while the fireman they are with has his pants catch fire.
• Stan Olber jumps into ankle-deep lava so that he can throw an unconscious subway driver to safety, which is ridiculous the pain of landing in lava would send your body into instant shock so doing anything other than screaming in agony is highly unlikely.
• We see helicopters dropping water on the lava but the water would have most likely vaporized by the time it actually hit the lava, not to mention the fact that ash would have clogged their engines and the updrafts from the 1000 ºC lava would flipped them out of control.
• Keith David tries to help the little boy and asks, “Let’s go find your mom. What’s she look like?” The kid responds, “She looks like…” Then seeing everyone covered in gray ash the little tike states, “Look at their faces, they all look the same.”

There you have it folks, Mother Nature has cured racism.

That the film is set in Los Angeles may excuse the screenwriter’s strange need to address the racial issues that still plague the City of Angels and while having one character reference Rodney King is one thing it’s pretty ridiculous to have a white police officer go out of his way to handcuff a black man while lava is erupting all around them, it makes the cop not look so much like a racist asshat but a complete moron as well and it took what was already a pretty heavy-handed scene and made it ludicrous. That kind of thing could be overlooked if the rest of the script was any better but Tommy Lee Jones was clearly told to play his part as if his character from The Fugitive had made a career change and moved to L.A.  I half expected him to belt out to the people around him that “What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area, just find me that volcano.” The character of Mike Roark couldn't have been a bigger cliché if he’d also announced he was three days away from retirement.

“I’m too old for this shit.”

As to the disaster elements in this film, there are some great uses of practical effects to be found in director Mick Jackson's Volcano but the CGI lava is never all that convincing nor was not allowed to properly interact with the real environs – the firemen were forced to aim their fire hoses off-screen instead of at the leading edge of the lava because that interaction were something the effects team clearly couldn't do so they didn’t even bother to try – and while visuals of lava bombs flying through the air and magma bubbling to the surface had its moments the key problem with this outing is that despite all the fiery pandemonium the script is mostly a collection cheesy clichés and none of the characters rise above their two-dimensional depictions. There are certainly worse disaster movies out there but as this was a big star-studded Hollywood blockbuster they could have spent a little more time and money on the effects and even more time on the script. Sadly, they clearly didn’t and the result was a disaster movie that is forgettable when not being unintentionally funny.

Dante’s Peak (1997) – Review

Today, we'll be diving into the fiery depths of Dante's Peak, a disaster movie that's hotter than a jalapeño pepper on a summer's day and pits James Bond and Sarah Conner against one of Earth’s mightiest creations, of course, the film’s biggest foe wasn’t Mother Nature but the other volcano movie staring Tommy Lee Jones, which came out a few months later, but we’ll get to that one at a later date.

From the opening scene, director Roger Donaldson creates a sense of impending doom as we see vulcanologist Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) witnessing the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in Colombia, one that leaves him haunted and determined to prevent a similar catastrophe from occurring in the future, which eventually leads him to Dante's Peak, a picturesque town nestled in the mountains where he discovers that the volcano beneath it is showing signs of activity and that a major eruption is imminent. Needless to say, this news is not very welcome to the residents of a town that was just voted “Second Most Desirable Place to Live in the United States” and tension builds as Harry tries to convince the town's mayor, Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton), that the volcano is about to erupt and unleash a deadly torrent of molten lava and ash on her unsuspecting town, not that this is the only tensions that are developed in this film, we also get sparks flying between the scientist and the mayor.

Not so much a “meet cute” as it is a meet Armageddon.

The plot is fairly predictable but it's executed with such intensity and skill that you won't really mind. The film also does an excellent job of building unease and suspense as the characters try to figure out how to escape the impending disaster even if some of these idiots deserve a lava bath. Pierce Brosnan as Dalton is so serious about his job that he could probably make a rock crack under pressure and watching him try to convince the townspeople of Dante's Peak that they're in danger is like watching a robot trying to interact with humans, and not only is he met with skepticism and resistance from the small-minded townspeople his boss, Paul Dreyfus (Charles Hallahan), also gives him a hard time about issuing an alert because he convinced that a false alarm could cause just as much damage as an erupting volcano.

Anyone who thinks Paul will survive to the end of this film please raise your hand.

If the drama of an impending eruption isn’t enough then strap yourself in as we also get some terrible forced drama in the form of Rachel’s ex-mother-in-law (Elizabeth Hoffman), a woman who refuses to abandon her home despite the fact that sits at the foot of the volcano, and she exists in this movie simply because the plot needs her to be a complete dumbass, one with the moronic belief that “The mountain will never hurt us” and this idiotic attitude puts her in the same survivability category as good old Paul Dreyfus.  But things get a little more complicated when Rachel’s two idiot children decide to steal their mom’s car and drive up to save good ole Gran...sigh. Now, I’m not one to wish harm on children but Charles Darwin had some salient points on the survival of the species and getting these two kids out of the gene pool would probably be for the best.

The family that flees together stays together.

Stray Observations:

• A couple of skinny dippers are boiled alive while making out in a hot spring, giving the volcano the appearance of a geological serial killer.
• Actor Grant Heslov, who plays one of Harry’s team, already had a close encounter with the "volcanic kind" when he starred in the adaptation of the Michael Crichton book Congo.
• The cast includes such characters as a mercenary helicopter pilot and a rich investor all because the film clearly needed a couple more people for us to cheer along with as they died.
• They use a small motorboat to cross a lake, which has been turned acidic due to volcanic activity, but as the type of boat they are using has a water-cooled engine the acid in the lake would have caused it to seize almost immediately.
• Harry and Rachel are somehow able to keep ahead of the pyroclastic cloud in a truck that has no bloody tires, which is a pretty impressive feat when you consider that a pyroclastic cloud travels up to 700 kilometres.
• The town of Dante’s Peak is completely wiped out and the ash-covered rubble gave off a very Terminator 2: Judgement Day vibe to me.

This would really feel like "old home week" for Sarah Connor.

What really sets Dante's Peak apart from other disaster movies is the strong emotional core of the story, with Brosnan giving an excellent performance as the determined and brave Harry, but it's his relationship with Linda Hamilton's character, the town's mayor, that gives the film its heart and keeps us invested in the story. For fans of the genre, this movie wastes no time in setting the stage for the impending disaster, with early scenes showcasing the idyllic beauty of Dante's Peak and the charming characters who call it home and then the ominous rumblings of the volcano begin to disrupt the peace and quiet, and before you can say “Don’t fool with Mother Nature” volcanic ash is spewing over the town like a death shroud, acid lakes have to be travailed and rivers of lava driven over, and yes, Dalton has the most badass truck in the world as it can cross any terrain even if said terrain is molten rock. In reality, lava is capable of temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which would have melted the undercarriage and left them trapped, well, only until the gas tank exploded and then they'd be free to join Gran in Heaven.

Add a Sam Elliot voice-over and you’d have a great Dodge Ram commercial.

To bring this movie to life, director Roger Donaldson and his team of special effects artists really brought their “A” game here as both practical and computer effects are really quite impressive, with the volcanic ash, smoke, and lava looking convincingly realistic, but let's get one thing straight, Dante's Peak is not a perfect movie - some of the cliches really stack up poorly - but if you're looking for a good old-fashioned disaster flick then buckle up, buttercup, because this movie is a rollercoaster ride from start to finish.

Independence Day (1996) – Review

Alien invasion films have been a staple of science fiction movies for decades with such classics as George Pal's War of the Worlds and Ray Harryhausen’s Earth vs. the Flying Saucers bringing alien destruction to the big screen, but in 1996 Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich took that standard sci-fi element and blended it with the 70s disaster genre, making a truly remarkable and explosive offering.

Set against the backdrop of the July 4th Holiday, a symbol of American independence and unity, the film unfolds with a sense of impending doom as several massive alien spacecraft descend upon Earth's major cities, panic and chaos ensue. Independence Day swiftly transitions between different characters, weaving their individual stories into a larger tapestry of global crisis and it's this narrative technique that allows the audience to experience the invasion's impact from various perspectives, emphasizing the shared nature of the threat through the eyes of several characters, each contributing to the overarching narrative. Heading up the ensemble is Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) a charismatic fighter pilot and David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) an MIT-educated satellite engineer who is the one to figure out that the aliens are not the "We come in peace" variety, and it will be up him and Hiller to take the fight to the alien invaders and save the day.

“Don’t worry, I’ve outfitted us with tons of plot armour.”

While Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith are the ostensible heroes of this film, Independence Day follows the formula that has been the backbone of many disaster films by supplying a variety of characters for us to follow; chief of them is the President of the United States Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman), White House Communications Director Constance Spano (Margaret Colin), who also happens to be David Levinson’s ex-wife, then we have alcoholic crop duster Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) whose life spiralled out of control after a supposed alien abduction years ago, next we have Steven Hiller's girlfriend Jasmine Dubrow (Vivica A. Fox) who along with her son will hook up with First Lady Marilyn Whitmore (Mary McDonnell) for some added drama.  But things get really interesting when our cast of characters are forced to retreat to Area 51 and they encounter Dr. Brackish Okun (Brent Spiner) who not only has alien corpses from the Roswell crash of 1947 on hand but a fully functional alien spacecraft as well. Like many alien invaders in past science fiction outings, these creatures are here to destroy our national monuments and blow shit up, and in that area, this film really excels.

Do you think the aliens used postcards to determine what to target?

Stray Observations:

• The eerie and breathtaking sight of massive spacecraft positioning themselves over various cities around the world mimics what we saw in the television mini-series V in 1983.
• There would be no need for the aliens to use Earth satellites for communications. They had deployed ships all around the globe which could easily relay signals.
• Jasmine, her kid and their dog surviving the fireball in the tunnel is ludicrous, they would have been roasted by the fireball going through the open door, not to mention the fire consuming all the oxygen as it travelled through the tunnel.
• Since the "shields" of the alien ships can not be penetrated, even by nuclear weapons, why would the aliens bother to deploy their own fighters to engage the oncoming earth fighters?
• The small alien craft would have been designed for multi-tentacled beings so trying to fly one with two human hands should be next to impossible.
• The aliens utilize a bio-mechanical suit so when Will Smith did the whole “Welcome to Earth” and punched the alien in the “head” all that should have accomplished would have been breaking his own hand.
• David manages to write a virus for an unknown alien computer, with an unknown and alien operating system and an interface that uses an unknown and alien language. There is genius and then there is magic bullshit like this.
• Using a “virus” to defeat the aliens is a nice reference to the common cold taking out the Martain invaders in the H.G. Wells classic War of the Worlds which certainly makes more sense than what we have here.
• Our heroes travel to the mothership aboard an alien craft that crashed in Roswell back in 1947, but for some reason, the aliens don’t question the return of this long-lost ship.

“We’ll just tell them we’re exchange students.”

Beyond its thrilling action sequences and groundbreaking effects, the film offers deeper themes that resonate with audiences. One such theme is humanity's ability to unite in times of crisis. The shared threat of the alien invasion erases national boundaries, bringing together people of different backgrounds and beliefs. The movie emphasizes that, in the face of external peril, humanity's survival instinct can foster cooperation and empathy among even the most unlikely allies and Bill Pullman's portrayal of President Thomas J. Whitmore brings a genuine emotional depth to the film and his rousing speech before the climactic battle has become one of the most memorable moments in cinematic history. The camaraderie and sacrifices made by the characters make their fight against the alien invaders incredibly compelling and relatable.

Who can’t relate to a drunk Randy Quaid?

The movie is a rollercoaster of suspense, action, and heart-pounding moments with the now iconic scenes of the alien ships obliterating famous landmarks, such as the White House and Empire State Building, and becoming etched in pop culture memory. The CGI effects, though somewhat dated by today's standards, were groundbreaking for their time and still contribute to the film's intense atmosphere but it's the amazing model work to create all that alien devastation that is beyond impressive – it still holds the record for most miniature model work to appear in one film – and it set the benchmark for such blockbuster effects for all future genre efforts. More than two decades after its release, Independence Day continues to hold a special place in the hearts of audiences worldwide and the film's legacy is evident in its influence on subsequent science fiction and disaster films, as well as its impact on popular culture. The term "Independence Day" itself has become synonymous with the celebration of national identity and the triumph of the human spirit.

Insert stirring inspirational speech here.

Despite its strengths, Independence Day is not without its flaws. Some characters fall into predictable archetypes, certain plot developments may stretch believability and the dialogue occasionally ventures into cheesy territory, while some character arcs a left undeveloped. Additionally, certain plot conveniences and scientific inaccuracies may challenge viewers who are seeking a more grounded science fiction experience. There is also the issue of some jingoistic elements – there are so many shots of American icons and military vehicles that you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought you were watching a Michael Bay movie – and when our heroes come up with a plan to take down the aliens we are "treated" to a montage of other countries standing around as if they were simply waiting for America to step in and save the day. However, these issues are easily overlooked in the face of the film's overall entertainment value and if you came here to see Will Smith act cool and be a badass then you will get just that, and if watching cities explode and crumble is your thing then Independence Day has plenty of that as well.

Who doesn’t like some good disaster porn?

In conclusion, Independence Day remains a beloved classic that encapsulates the spirit of '90s blockbuster cinema and its combination of thrilling action, memorable characters and inspiring moments makes it a must-watch for fans of the genre. While it may venture into cheesy moments and goofy science its enduring appeal and impact on popular culture are undeniable. Whether you're revisiting it for nostalgia or discovering it for the first time, Independence Day is a spectacle that continues to entertain and captivate audiences worldwide.

Tornado! (1996) – Review

When a major studio has a high-profile project in the pipeline it’s not unusual for smaller production houses to try and piggyback their own similar-themed films to capitalize on these bigger releases, especially if that larger film is getting a lot of good buzz, such was the case in 1996 when Hallmark Entertainment made-for-television tornado movie that aired three days before Warner Brothers released Twister in theatres.

The movie starts with a text card stating that “Scientists warn that due to the increase in global warming, existing weather patterns are becoming steadily more severe; creating stronger hurricanes, worse floods, longer droughts and devasting tornadoes” which is an "inconvenient truth" that viewers today can certainly attest to. The hero of this particular story is storm chaser Jake Thorne (Bruce Campbell) whose friend and former graduate school advisor, Dr. Joe Branson (Ernie Hudson), has developed a machine that may be able to provide earlier tornado warnings.  While this seems to be a plot point right out of Twister at least this film doesn’t have a rival storm chaser group driving around in black SUVs with a stolen copy of the machine, in fact, the conflict that is introduced in this movie is in the form of Samantha Callen (Shannon Sturges), a government auditor who must determine whether Dr. Branson's project warrants more funding because nothing is more exciting than accounting, but she least brings some love interest into the equation.

 

“Sorry Ernie, I’m setting aside storm chasing to chase some tail.”

Much of the film’s humour stems from Callen being a “city girl” and wondering where the local mall is, while "Salt-of-the-Earth" Jake Thorne will make it his mission to poke fun at her fish-out-of-water character, a trait that is only bearable because it’s Bruce Campbell and he’s one of the few actors who can really pull off the charming asshole trope. The other key character in this drama is Jake's grandfather Ephram Thorne (L.Q. Jones) who doesn’t believe that science is capable of detecting Mother Nature’s fury, stating that “All the computers in creation can’t change nature, now a tornado’s got a devil’s heart and a dead soul, and until you’ve seen that you ain’t telling me nothing about nothing.” Who can argue with that wholesome piece of frontier gibberish? Of course, it will be Grandpa Thorne who sacrifices his life to get Branson’s machine anchored so that it can withstand the high winds as the big tornado approaches.

 

Note: The machine that Branson designed to record atmospheric information inside the tornado has powerful legs that can be anchored several feet into the ground, so as not to be blown away while in the path of a tornado, which seems like a common-sense approach that the characters in Twister couldn’t seem to grasp.

While this film doesn’t have “evil” corporate storm chasers, the kind that are in it just for the money, we do have an antagonist in the form of Richie Cochran (Charles Homet), a local weatherman who has aspirations of moving up to the big leagues - who knew weathermen had big leagues - and his past history with Jake will cause some tension throughout the movie, as will his hitting on Samantha when the group go out dancing.  That is all window dressing as the real conflict happens when Jake is sure a big tornado is heading right for their area but Richie won’t go on television with a warning because if it turns out to be wrong it could hurt his career because, you know, weathermen being wrong is something that never happens. Eventually, Richie will do the right thing and issue the warning so that “conflict” does have a resolution of some sort. Of course, the film’s real resolution is Grandpa spitting in the eye of the Devil.

 

“From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee!”

Stray Observations:

• The marketing team must have spent many a day and night coming up with such an original and gripping title as Tornado! for their movie about a tornado. I bet when they came up with adding an exclamation point they gave themselves high fives and a raise.
• As was the case in Twister, the scientist in this film uses the Fujita Scale to reference wind speeds when, in fact, the Fujita Scale actually measures the damage caused by the tornado and not the wind speeds.
• Jake describes an F5 tornado as “A killer” but pretty much all tornadoes are lethal to humans and an F5 simply leaves more destruction in its wake.
• We see Jake getting angry at Richie for shooting footage of the aftermath of a tornado but doesn’t he realize that all news stations everywhere do the same thing? It’s not like exploiting human tragedy is a new thing.
• Both this film and Twister show a tornado with a calm center, like the eye of a hurricane, but tornadoes don't have calm centers and many of them have mini-cyclones rotating around the main vortex.

 

Clearly, tens of dollars were spent on the effects of this film.

One can’t expect much in the way of visual spectacle when watching a made-for-television disaster movie but Tornado! not only has very poor special effects there is barely any tornado action at all during its short 86-minute running time, with most of what we get being generated by offscreen wind machines. On the plus side, Bruce Campbell and Shannon Sturges have good screen chemistry and Ernie Hudson is more than up for the task as the dedicated scientist friend.  Then there is L.Q. Jones, who was clearly having fun with his part and his performance elevated every scene he was in, no matter how ridiculous it was.  While this made-for-television movie may have been a simple case of cashing in on the upcoming movie Twister I still found the characters in this film to be likable to be more than the ones found in that bigger-budget outing, and it does get bonus points for pointing out how Washington DC does its best to avoid the Global Warming issue.

Twister (1996) – Review

Ever since seeing The Wizard of Oz as a child, I’ve been fascinated by tornadoes but when it comes to their depictions in cinema they have been fairly scarce as the effects needed to create these rather unique examples of Mother Nature's fury aren’t as easy to pull off, or at least not as easy as depicting an earthquake or a hurricane, but with the advent of CGI this had now became almost as simple as hitting a few keystrokes on your computer, but technology aside a good story is still required to make it all work and that can be a problem.

The movie opens in 1969 with a tornado destroying an Oklahoma farmhouse and killing the dad, sparing the mom and little girl, and we then jump ahead to the present day where that little girl is now a Tornado Chaser, Doctor Jo Thornton (Helen Hunt), who has become obsessed with tornado since that childhood tragedy because you can’t have a scientist in a movie without some heavy emotional baggage and personal motivation that defines their career goals. We then meet her estranged husband Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) who has come back to Oklahoma with his fiancé, Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz), to get Jo to sign their divorce papers, but what follows is twenty-four hours of intense tornado action that will somehow heal the divide between Jo and Bill because if I’ve learned anything from the movies it's that disasters are the best marriage therapists in the world, sadly, this leaves poor Melissa standing alone in the rain making her the real victim in this movie.

Justice for Melissa!

Jan de Bont’s Twister is a very fun disaster film but his decision to hang these moments of cataclysmic forces of nature on a toxic love triangle is a bit weird, especially when you consider the fact that Jo spends much of the movie passively aggressively sabotaging the relationship between Bill and Melissa, who is a very nice person and deserves none of this, just so that Jo can win Bill back, and we are supposed to be on her side? Of course, this film doesn’t just have Jo’s psychotic relationship machination subplot to keep the tension up, we also have another human villain in this piece, which comes in the form of rival "Storm Chaser" Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) who used to be a colleague of theirs until he went “corporate” and formed his own group of storm chasers, and he is even using a piece of storm sensor technology that Bill had developed back in the day. I always find it funny when disaster movies feel the need to toss in a human villain as if the particular disaster facing the group isn’t good enough, and I have to ask "Is this because you can’t have a proper argument with a tornado or an earthquake" and to fill that bill in that area the film gives us “evil” storm chasers.

How do we know they’re evil?  They are driving black SUVs, that's how.

We’ve seen this kind of thing before in Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno, where corporate greed led to cutting corners in the construction of a highrise that caused a deadly fire, and in Earthquake Marjoe Gortner played a psychotic National Guardsmen who planned to rape Victoria Principle amongst the rubble of Los Angeles, but this movie doesn't give us anything as crass as that, instead, we simply get a man who Bill basically accuses of not being altruistic enough “He’s in it for the money, not the science” but this leads to such questions as “What corporation would sponsor tornado chasers?” and “Is there a lot of money in tornado chasing” It’s not like this is NASCAR or any other type of major sport that generates millions of viewers, and Jonas and his crew are driving around in these black SUVs yet we don’t see any corporate logos on any of the vehicles, which is something you’d expect a corporate sponsor to want.

I’d love to see Sprint or Pepsi try and slap a logo on the side of a tornado.

Stray Observations:

• Jo’s dad would have survived that twister, if he hadn’t stupidly tried to hold the storm shelter door, closed and, instead, simply cowered in the back of the cellar with his wife and daughter, but then we wouldn’t have had a trauma-fueled scientist as the star of our movie.
• Jo and company repeatedly refer to the tornadoes by their Fujita scale rating but as this scale is determined by the damage caused by the tornado, not by some kind of size measurement, calling them an F-2 or F-3 while currently chasing them is utter bullshit.
• Jonas is vilified for selling out to 'corporate sponsors' but this film’s blatant product placement with Pepsi makes this accusation a trifle hypocritical on the filmmaker’s side.
• Bill accuses Jonas of stealing the idea behind “Dorothy” but Jonas claims it was an “unrealized idea” so he had every right to design his own version, and he’s completely correct, you cannot patent an idea for an invention, the invention itself has to be produced or at the very least a patent application, containing the invention, must be filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Jo exclaims to Bill “You've never seen it miss this house, and miss that house, and come after you!” which is not something you’d expect an actual scientist to say regarding tornados as they are not some sentient monsters that target particular people.
• We see the winds of the tornado hurling vehicles and houses over and around our heroes yet for some reason, this selfsame wind has no effect on Jo and Bill, clearly, they are both carrying their “Hero Death Exemption” cards.
• It takes Jo till the end of the movie to realize that “Dorothy” is too light to survive the winds of an approaching tornado, but as these winds can reach upwards of 300 mph shouldn’t that have been a concern from the earliest design stages?
• Jo and Bill survive an F-5 tornado by tying themselves to a pipe in a small wooden shed but as debris, consisting of flying wood splinters and shards of glass, was flying around them at 300 mph they would have been ripped to shreds.

Yeah, them surviving this is all kinds bullshit.

If we can look past the insane levels of “plot armour” required to keep our protagonists alive, and they should be dead multiple times over during the duration of this story, the aspect of the film that really gave me a hard time was the aforementioned forced relationship conflict between our three main characters because when it comes to sympathizing with a protagonist having a tragic backstory doesn’t give a person the right to ruin someone else's life, and Bill dumping sweet Melissia for Jo left me thinking that Melissa narrowly escaped a shitty life because Bill was totally unworthy of her, basically, if Jo and Bill had both been whisked off to Oz I really wouldn’t have cared one jot. 

Bill Paxton, the unlikely hero.

Overall, Twister has some truly jaw-dropping effects – even with its late 90s CGI the twisters on display here hold up surprisingly well – but if you look past the visceral thrills of these amazing moments of nature’s fury the basic concept of the film is pretty thin, and to call the characters on display here two-dimensional is being overly generous and the result can be best described as a victory of technology over storytelling.

Titanic (1997) – Review

There have been so many cinematic retellings of the sinking of this legendary ship, dating back as far as the silent era, but one of the most well-regarded adaptations of the story would be the 1958 British film A Night to Remember, which is still widely considered to be the most historically accurate cinematic portrayal of the sinking, in fact, it was that film that inspired James Cameron to graft an epic romance to this unforgettable tale, which resulted in the most successful disaster film ever produced.

With his telling of the sinking of the Titanic, writer/director James Cameron went with the rather clever narrative device of bookending this historical event with modern-day segments, dealing with salvagers diving on the wreck to find a famously expensive jewel known as “The Heart of the Ocean” as this not only allowed some modern context to what is now known about the sinking but it also introduced a MacGuffin that would drive some of the film’s plot forward. The man looking for this lost diamond is marine salvage expert Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton), who is rather disappointed when his submersibles recover the safe that supposedly held the diamond, but when they open it all they discover of note is a nude drawing of a woman in the drawing wearing the diamond. This leads to 106-year-old Rose Dawson Calvert (Gloria Stuart) seeing a news report about the treasure hunt and she quickly informs them that she is the woman in the sketch.  Needless to say, Brock is very interested in her story so she is brought aboard the research ship to recount the events of the sinking, but what’s missing here is the dialogue that led her to be flown out to the site in the first place. Did it go something like this:

Rose: “I was just wondering if you had found “The Heart of the Ocean” yet, Mister Lovett?”
Lovett: “All right, you have my attention Rose. Can you tell us who the woman in the picture is?”
Rose: “Oh yes, the woman in the picture is me.”
Lovett: “Fantastic, do you know where the diamond is?”
Rose: “As a matter of fact I do, but I want you to fly me out to your ship so that I can spend three hours regaling you with tales of my shipboard sexual exploits before tossing it into the Atlantic.”

This is much steamier than doing it via conference call.

Re-watching this movie I found it odd that at no point in the film do we ever see Brock Lovett asking straight-out if Rose knows where the diamond is located, and if he did ask we then have to assume that she lied to him so she could get this free trip out the wreck site just so she could secretly heave the jewel overboard. And sure, Brock is a bit of a heartless graverobber, who never truly understood the story of the Titanic “I never got it. I never let it in,” but does this excuse Rose for wasting everyone’s time and money just so that she could have some closure of her own? Of course, this is simply a framing device that James Cameron utilized to tell his version of the most famous ocean disaster in history and the fate of Brock Lovett is totally irrelevant, what Cameron was interested in telling was an epic romance in the vein of Romeo and Juliet with the sinking of the Titanic as an action-packed backdrop.

The story of a woman with a really fantastic hat.

The basic plot of Titanic is fairly simple, a young Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) is being somewhat forced to marry millionaire Caledon Hockley (Billy Zane), an arrogant bully who goes from jerk to full-own villain throughout the course of the film, and then Rose meets with Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is a poor but well-travelled individual that just so happened to win tickets aboard the RMS Titanic.  As the movie goes along we will deal with Rose's widowed mother (Frances Fisher), the one pushing Rose into this terrible marriage, as their once prestigious family is now broke, and Spicer Lovejoy (David Warner) the valet/bodyguard of Cal who looks to be taking time off from tying damsels in distress to railway tracks. Cameron sprinkles his script with these fictional characters as they interact with actual passengers and crew, so we get Rose making comments to ship designer Thomas Andrew (Victor Garber) about why the ship doesn’t seem to have enough lifeboats, and during the sinking, we will see Captain Smith (Bernard Hill) ineptly wandering around the deck like a ghost being haunted by the knowledge of how history will look back on his actions.

Note: Billy Zane’s character may have been a villainous jerk but at least he wasn’t responsible for more than 1,500 deaths.

The film gets a lot of mileage out of the star-crossed lover's theme and the disparate class distinction between the two, with the Unsinkable Molly Brown (Kathy Bates) trying to help Jack fit in while dining in the First Class Lounge, and then Rose joining Jack for a party with the third class passengers in steerage, but when the film reaches the half-way point Cameron settles down to gives us a solid disaster film as his depiction of the sinking is nothing less than spectacular and while some of the CGI dates this film the bulk of the action is done with practical effects that wonderfully blend the spectacular visuals with that old-fashioned melodrama. Simply put, James Cameron's recreation of the sinking of the RMS Titanic liner is one of the most stunning pieces of cinema to ever escape the confines of Hollywood and deserves every bit of acclaim it received, well, maybe not eleven Oscars but the film is pretty damn great, even if he still felt the need to litter his script with standard disaster tropes and cliches that doesn’t quite fit with the historical events, for example, once again Bruce Ismay (Jonathon Hyde) is depicted as a boorish coward who urged the Captain to increase speed and thus increase publicity about the maiden voyage, despite there being no evidence of him doing any such thing, and then him slinking aboard one of the lifeboats is completely untrue.

Unfairly branded a coward simply for surviving.

Stray Observations:

• It’s never explained how a submersible rover was able to bring that safe up through the wreckage of the Titanic and to the surface, that safe would have weighed several hundred pounds at least.
• Molly Brown loans Jack her son's tuxedo so he can have dinner with the first-class crowd but as her son wasn’t onboard why did she have any of his clothing on board the Titanic?
• In this film, Bernard Fox plays Colonel Archibald Gracie IV and Fox had previously portrayed Frederick Fleet in the 1958 film A Night to Remember, who was one of the lookouts who spotted the iceberg on that fateful night.
• David Warner plays the villainous valet/bodyguard in this film but he also appeared in the 1979 TV miniseries S.O.S. Titanic where he played a science schoolteacher who survived the sinking.
• Many versions of the Titanic story show 3rd Class passengers locked below decks, even though this was not the case, yet it does add a nice bit of social class commentary.
• Officer William Murdoch is portrayed as a weak character who takes bribes to get a spot in a lifeboat and after shooting an agitated passenger he turns the gun on himself. In reality, he died a hero giving up his own life jacket and eventually drowning.
• Rose tosses the "Heart of the Ocean" overboard despite the fact that it would be worth around half a billion dollars and not only could it have set all her descendants up for life even if she wanted no part of it she still could donate it to various charities or many other humanitarian efforts.
• The movie ends with 106-year-old Rose presumably dying in her sleep and her soul being reunited with Jack Dawson and the others who died when the Titanic went down, a truly romantic moment, but as she did eventually marry what about the soul of her actual husband, doesn’t he warrant a visit?

I guess a young Leonard DiCaprio trumps any other relationships.

One of the most interesting elements of James Cameron’s Titanic is how so many people thought it was going to be a box office bomb, with such inciteful reasoning as “Who is going to see a movie when everyone knows how it ends?” and this was fuelled by the ever-increasing budget that reached $200 million dollars, more than the cost of the actual Titanic, and this led 20th Century Fox making a partnership deal with the Paramount to sure the burden, a deal I’m sure the executives of Fox are still kick themselves over. This was the kind of epic motion picture that Hollywood was known for making in the 50s and 60s but with Biblical epics like The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur in the rear-view mirror, and box office bombs like the 1963 epic Cleopatra almost bankrupting the studio, that kind of big-budget storytelling had gone out of fashion – we are now currently living through a new era of epics only now involving superheroes instead of historical events – but it was Cameron who showed the world that this kind of thing could still pay off with the right blend of romance and tragedy.

This film has some beautiful and dark moments.

The performances are exceptional, with DiCaprio and Winslet delivering some of the best work of their careers. Their chemistry is palpable, and their love story is both poignant and tragic. The supporting cast is also excellent, with standout performances from Billy Zane as the arrogant and entitled Cal Hockley, and Gloria Stuart as the elderly Rose, whose memories of the Titanic serve as the framing device for the film. The score by James Horner is one of the most memorable in cinematic history, perfectly capturing the film's emotional highs and lows and the song "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion became an instant classic, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song and remains a beloved staple of pop culture, even if it may have had a little too much airtime.  The film is a technical marvel, with stunning visual effects that bring the ship and its passengers to life. The attention to detail is incredible, from the opulent interiors of the first-class cabins to the gritty realism of the below-deck areas. Cameron's direction is masterful, keeping the film's pacing tight and the tension high throughout.

In conclusion, Titanic is a timeless classic that has earned its place in the pantheon of great films and despite its nearly three-hour runtime it never feels bloated or tedious. Every moment of the film serves a purpose, and every scene is crafted with care and attention to detail. It's a sweeping epic that takes you on an emotional journey, leaving you breathless by the time the credits roll. With its stunning visuals, incredible performances, and unforgettable score, it's a cinematic experience that should not be missed.

A Night to Remember (1958) – Review

Unlike James Cameron’s blockbuster epic Titanic, which focused on a love story while the famous ship’s sinking was used as a backdrop to their passion, Roy Ward Baker’s A Night to Remember is more of a docudrama as it was based on the non-fiction book by Walter Lord, and after all these years this movie still remains one of the best depictions of that fateful night.

Unlike the 1953 Titanic from 20th Century Fox, which starred Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck as two fictional passengers aboard the doomed ship, A Night to Remember doesn’t have real stars or even a lead character - the closest we get to this is Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Kenneth More) - and while he is the first named character we meet he is far from a dominant screen persona.  This lack of a central character is due to the fact that this film was based on a nonfictional account of the tragedy, so neither the studio nor director Roy Ward Baker felt the need to create fictional drama aboard one of the most dramatic moments in world history. For those who have been living under a rock, this movie tells the story of RMS Titanic, the largest and most luxurious vessel afloat, which was widely believed to be unsinkable until the unthinkable happened, sending the ship to the bottom of the ocean on its maiden voyage.

Note: A supposedly unsinkable ship sinking on its maiden voyage seems like an “on-the-nose” premise for a disaster movie, and that this was actually the case makes this story even more incredible.

One of the best elements of this entry is the way in which the filmmakers brilliantly blended the ship's real-life passengers and crew with that of a group of composite historical characters who perfectly capture the terrifying events that unfold. We have Aristocrats sailing on their entitlements, young lovers on a doomed honeymoon and immigrants dreaming of a new world that they will never reach, all ingredients that Eric Ambler’s screenplay wonderfully brought to life. A Night to Remember doesn’t focus on any particular group or person - as mentioned, Lightoller is given a larger part than most - so we get a very well-balanced depiction of the events and the actions of the crew and passengers. There is Captain Smith (Laurence Naismith), wireless operators Jack Philips (Kenneth Griffith) and Harold Bride (David McCallum), shipbuilder Thomas Andrew (Michael Goodliffe), Margaret “Molly” Brown (Tucker MacGuire) and the managing director of the White Star Line Bruce Ismay (Frank Lawton), who has been unfairly depicted as a coward in most depictions of the Titanic sinking.

Note: By all accounts, Bruce Ismay was a sweet and charming man who had no influence whatsoever over the running of the ship, he was simply a passenger and he certainly never goaded the Captain into ignoring ice warnings, also, he only got onboard a lifeboat because the one being lowered was more than half empty.

Stray Observations:

• This was far from the first movie based on the sinking of the Titanic and it even includes footage “borrowed” from the Nazi propaganda film Titanic (1943).
• As accurate as this film is when it comes to depicting this tragic tale it does start with a rather weird inaccuracy by showing a big launching ceremony for the Titanic, which was something the White Star Line didn’t do for their ships.
• This movie doesn’t waste any time getting to the meat and potatoes of the disaster, the Titanic hits the iceberg at the 34-minute mark while it took James Cameron’s version 100 minutes before it got to the collision.
• Actors Laurence Naismith, John Cairney and Honor Blackman would later venture aboard Ray Harryhausen's fantasy epic Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

 

Did the god Poseidon have something against these people or the ship?

The one element of this film that does stick in my craw, something that appears in many other films portraying this event, is the depiction of Second Officer Lightoller as this noble hero who worked valiantly to the very end, and while some of that is true his taking the order of “Women and children first” as “Women and children only” may have resulted in the deaths of up to 200 people on the RMS Titanic as this led to him launching lifeboats that were half-filled. To be fair, he later saved many people from the frigid waters when he organized one of the overturned collapsible boats, and I’m sure he thought what he was doing was best, but whether due to misinformation on what the lifeboats could handle or not I still find it hard to cheer for him. It should be noted that as accurate as the filmmakers tried to be with the events of that fateful night they were still dealing with what was believed to be the case at the time, such as the ship going down in one piece, while later, when the wreck was found by Doctor Robert Ballard, it would be proven to have actually broken in half.

Note: At the hearings, witnesses who claimed to have seen the ship breaking in half were ignored in favour of Lightoller’s statement that it went down in one piece, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the people over at White Star Line were pushing this narrative as their ship “breaking in half” would be another nail in their already terrible public relations nightmare.

Whatever failing this film has in the area of historical accuracy is minor when compared to how marvellous and moving an account of the behaviour of the people on the Titanic was depicted in this movie, from the casual denial of the dangers “Don’t be ridiculous, this ship can’t sink” to the eventual panic following Captain Smith’s declaration of “Every man for himself,” everything on screen is handled with near perfection. The cast is impeccable and the sets are “picture perfect” reproductions of the rooms aboard the Titanic, not only was this an amazing portrayal of this horrific event it helped spark the wave of disaster films that would include such films as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.

Overall, A Night to Remember is a film not to be forgotten, and to me, it remains the definitive Titanic movie, a truly powerful film that illustrates humanity in a very honest light and is told through a very straightforward lens.