Keith Pangilinan Remember when on rabbi-ear TV it showed TV movies? I think "10.5: Apocalypse" was the last ones to show on network TV & there's a good reason why. (Only those Hallmark-type TV movies seem to appear these days.) 1st of all, where do I start w/ what sucks about "10.5: Apocalypse"? Is it having a trombonist as a cameraman? Has-been actors Kim Delaney or Dean Cain being the most recognizable in the cast? ("NYPD Blue" & "Lois & Clark" seem to be the zeniths in their respective careers.) Is it the fact that an earthquake moves like Bugs Bunny stopping & making a left turn around the nuclear power plant & is depicted as an actual lava chasm that gets more powerful as the Richter scale increases? Or is it the tiresome depiction of disaster film characters, from the determined band of survivors who get picked off 1-by-1 when necessary w/ the tiresome backstories & subplots that are meant for you 2 give a damn about 'em or the government officials, from the fearless leaders like Delaney or the guy who plays her dad, Frank Langella, while the others, including the President himself, are in DC fretting & arguing about how to stop the calamity? "Dammit, that's impossible! We don't got the time!" If I may, I assume they got the money to deploy government or military personnel to stop said calamity since in reality nobody has such a budget, bull or bear market. Let's see. I must start w/ the cinematography, & then special effects, than characters & plot. 1st off, the back-&-forth filming of "10.5: Apocalypse" is just godawful, plane & simple. I actually was getting nauseous watching every damn scene zoomed in & out, even during scenes of heavy dialogue like among the government workers. This may be okay for a 8-year-old excited to play w/ a camcorder or an 18-year-old making a silly monster movie w/ a 18-year-old's budget & properties. But it's grossly unprofessional to do so in a TV movie, notably w/ multiple cameras. I'm a fan of bad movies, but I don't remember any other movie I've seen in Spanish or any film on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" that had such a sickening feature like the gratuitous zoomin'. If Razzies could be awarded for other categories, I'd give 1 to "Girl In Gold Boots" for Editing, "Hamlet" (the MSTied one) for Art Direction, & "10.5: Apocalypse" for Cinematography. "Manos: the Hands of Fate" should be lucky to be nominated; overzooming is much much worse than having just a 16mm Bell & Howell that films only 32 seconds. What's next? CGI. The special effects were the best, or I should say the most tolerable part of the movie. For a film made in the '00s, CGI's the way to go. But it is a TV movie, so it's nothing like "Lord of the Rings." The plot, lackluster as it is, is quite familiar when it comes to disaster flicks. Some natural disaster or a combination of 'em, like earthquakes in Vegas & the Great Plains or volcanoes in the northwest, threaten to extinguish humanity or something like that, w/ great disregard for basic science. (People dying quickly in a volcanic eruption is a proved fact, though; been like that from Pompeii to Indonesia.) I don't see the big deal out of this. Regardless of deaths on a genocidal scale, seeing new straits & channels carve up California & North America's kinda cool. New maps, yay! I'm a map geek. I'd be interested to see how the newly changed geography changes transportation, economics & politics. Just look at the lighter side of things, a la "This Is the End". Why so serious? Thus bringing me to the characters. While I still know about 5 years worth of Spanish, the acting was rather identical to the over-acting on telenovelas to tell me that these guys were playing it straight like the director's basic instructions was "Think of 9/11! Action!" My apologies, but seeing the President & his crew act like they're learning about New Orleans, Haiti or the 2 tsunamis over the past decade while watching a new map of the US be made is just freakin' ludicrous (although the trombone-cam wasn't just crazier but very distracting). & I may not be keen on politics, but why must we also believe that the President & other government agencies such as FEMA got the whole thing covered? (Take note this was made around the time Katrina did New Orleans; either the producers weren't aware or ignored FEMA's bad publicity.) & when we're not watching President Beau Bridges look sad or frustrated regularly, we must watch the determined band of survivors in Las Vegas. This was pretty much "The Poseidon Adventure" stage of "10.5: Apocalypse." When Vegas sinks, we should have learned enough about these guys to cheer them on as they seek out safety (or cheer after one dies after making bets as to who'd be killed 1st). In conclusion, "10.5: Apocalypse," compared to "The Poseidon Adventure" or "Independence Day" before, or "2012" or "Pacific Rim" afterwards, is very amateurish & is the archetype of TV-movies about disasters that's only seen on Syfy or Unimas. & again, boo to the trombonist director.

WatchingInPerth ....is the last line that Dr Earl Hill/Frank Langella utters in this saga. And therein lies the best way to sum up this telemovie that is catastrophic, but for all the wrong reasons.Pity he didn't pay more attention to it when he read this thing & agreed to do it!Apparently, more lines are required to make this review valid! Really? What else is there to say? Not bad enough to be "so bad, it's good". Every clichéd piece of dialogue that has ever graced a bad telemovie, gathered together & trotted out one after the other. Is that enough now??!!!

AvdW I always watch disaster movies, but 9 out of 10 they turn out to be disasters themselves. This movie was no exception to that rule. The story is simple (as it should be): Mother Earth shows her wrath and has no mercy doing it. The president of the US (who else, as no other country seems to be affected — Hawaii being the US) takes charge and assembles a team of experts to tell what is going on and provide a solution to the problem. No complaints from me there. But why oh why does the daughter of the president have to happen to assist the doctor who treats the wife of the FEMA rescuer who saves his own wife who happens to be in the same building as the father of the scientist in charge who happens to be the discredited geologist who happens to have the 'solution' (no spoiler intended), all supervised by the daughter of the FEMA director who happens to be in direct contact with the president (to come full circle)? To cut it short: suspension of disbelieve is not something thought about thoroughly by the filmmakers.But that's story wise; in a disaster movie you expect disaster to take place, and indeed is does. The special effects and computer graphics are good (for a TV movie at least). No cardboard boxes, or Styrofoam walls flying around (not too obviously anyway), and the CGI is up-to-date. But then again the story line (or rather the suspension of disbelieve) cuts in: the imagery on the computer screens at the geological crisis center are good quality, but unrealistic; the distance people and helicopters are maneuvering from exposed lava or occurring earthquakes is sheer impossible; not to mention the small amount of people that apparently are actually caught in the disaster (admittedly, the number of extras swarming the make-shift medical rescue centers is impressive).Overall the movie shows rather realistic disasters, but that is all it does. There's no real science in the movie, there's no real personal drama (should I care for a person just because he/she is introduced to me?), and there is no satisfactory ending (yeah, yeah, we shall overcome …).

kai ringler as the movie goes, it was you're tradional disaster flick,, the problem i have with these kinds of movies though is that they are too cozy,, too schmoozy, but the action is decent i must say, the plot, fairly average. the ending i really liked, beau bridges did an adequate job in his role as the Prez. Kim Delaney, i thought she did a better job in the first one,, but hey she's hot and i like her. i wouldn't go so far as to call this movie great. but then again on the other hand it is not a stinker by any means.. i don't think they should make 11.0 . i think they really should have stopped with the first one,, only because some of what they suggest could happen , is so far fetched.. others, fairly plausible.