Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

shakercoola The first thing to say is the producers' intention of giving viewers the sense of a big earthquake unfolding works well. The tension builds quite well before the disaster ensues, cutting between the different seisomographic sub-plots. Although some fo the light hearted backstories do not work. Too many scenes border on the extraneous. Every disaster film needs some exposition because it's mostly about setting the audience up to care about the characters under threat or duresse later. This was not made easy with Heston's character and his marital issues and Kennedy's passive aggressive cop. Other characters like a familiar bar drunk and a sexual deviant, and pool players fighting for no reason were baffling. Some of the live action effects are iffy, but overall sound and special effects were quite good and a good score from John Williams. All in all, it's big spectacle and you don't feel short-changed about its 'A' movie pitch.

SnoopyStyle Remy (Ava Gardner) and Stuart Graff (Charlton Heston)'s marriage is falling apart. She ODs once again after another fight. During a small earthquake, she jumps up and reveals that she's faking. He's a construction engineer working for his father-in-law Sam Royce (Lorne Greene). He starts an affair with the widow of his friend and single mom Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold). There is a mysterious drowning at a local dam and other disturbing signs. LAPD cop Lou Slade (George Kennedy) gets suspended for punching a clueless county cop. Miles (Richard Roundtree) is a motorcycle rider perfecting a new stunt. Grad student Russell predicts the big one in 48 hours.Walter Matthau's getup is hilarious. That bar is a weird place and that T-shirt is super fine. I like that group of characters. They're a little off-beat and slightly fun. I care a lot less about the affair and the jealousy within the Graff marriage. They could drop into the earth for all I care. The earthquake action is as much as can be expected with shaking cameras, miniatures, falling styrofoam and other stuntwork. This is good special effects for its times and satisfies the need for destruction. It's nowhere near as visually compelling as CGI but it feeds the same animal instincts. There is a good 15 minutes of continuous destruction. The aftermath is a mix of good rescue scenarios and bad melodrama.

Lele Compare this movie with San Andreas (2015). They have the same theme, even the dam event and the lost girl and child drama. Earthquake is 40 years before and it cares for PEOPLE, where San Andreas cares for special effects and, no matter the thousands of dead, cares about the few main characters. This is silly and quite immoral too. In Earthquake you see people DYING as well as we did in the dramatic and hyper emotional shots of 9/11. Main characters die and some of them survive as it may happen in real life.I was 17 when the movie arrived her in Italy and I never saw it because... I didn't like Charlton Heston (and still I don't :)I am sure that even without Sensurraund I would have been very impressed by the special effects and sound and characterization of people, even the less important. Think about the tough moments between Rosa and the nut guy who tries to rape her or the LA officer who gets suspension because he punched the county officer.Plot and acting are not perfect but compared with San Andreas they seem like Laurence Olivier playing Shakespeare!8/10

Michael_Elliott Earthquake (1974) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Highly entertaining but brain-numbing stupid disaster picture has the "big one" hitting L.A. where a wide group of strangers must try to survive not only the disaster but its aftermath.EARTHQUAKE, in regards to its story, is downright awful from start to finish with one of the laziest and dumbest screenplays that the genre ever gave us. Thankfully, there's an all-star cast and some dazzling special effects that save it and in the end there's no doubt that it's worth watching if you're a fan of the genre. After all, the special effects won a special Oscar and I don't think anyone could argue that the effects are mighty impressive.The special effects are certainly the main reason to watch the film as we get to see a giant city fall thanks to not only an earthquake but there are also tall buildings on fire as well as a large amount of water from a dam that bursts. All of the special effects are quite impressive even to this day with the one exception being the blood splat during an elevator scene. The most impressive stuff deals with the actual earthquake as we get to see the ground crack in front of our eyes and buildings get ripped apart in seconds. The miniatures used are extremely believable and there's no doubt that the effects make you feel as if you're really witnessing an earthquake.As with any 70s disaster picture, this one here features a terrific cast with Charlton Heston leading the way as a man dating a younger woman (Genevieve Bujold) while trying to break away from his alcoholic wife (Ava Gardner). None of the three are Oscar worthy but they're entertaining enough. We've also got the "King of the Disasters" George Kennedy offering up a good performance. The supporting cast also includes Richard Roundtree, Lorne Greene, Victoria Principal and Marjoe Gortner. Walter Matthau also appears in an awful performance and role as a drunk.Speaking of the last two actors mentioned. There's a subplot dealing Gortner's character who we first see doing a nice act then seeing him getting picked on and then a really bizarre finale. I'm not sure why this character snaps but it's a really bad and somewhat embarrassing moment. Even the stuff with the Matthau character just seems to be from another film and looks awful here. The entire melodrama is pretty useless from start to finish and it's clear these stereotypes were just thrown together to be heroes or to die.EARTHQUAKE isn't a horrible movie thanks to the cast and there's no question that the special effects makes it a must see.