mvkirby01 I'm watching this movie right now, a little over one hour in. Very good character development before the catastrophe. Excellent special effects. I haven't read the storyline herein, nor any reviews here, this is just a one-person as-its-happening opinion. As far as disaster movies go, this is one of the best I've seen in the past 30 years. Worth a rental, or a must-catch on TV. All of the lead roles are very well played and believable. There is love here, anguish and anger. Lost or failing relationships are resurrected (as would be expected in any disaster). Direction is admirable, acting all around is good, this is not a "B" movie, it's very entertaining, not a waste of time.

Amy Adler Thomas (Tom Skerritt) is the fire chief for NYC but, he is about to submit his resignation. He has bones to pick with the city's mayor (Charles S. Dutton) and rather than work things out, Thomas is set to quit. The mayor has a beautiful, intelligent daughter who serves as a topnotch public defender but who is also being courted by a top law firm. Her latest case involves a man accused of murdering his wife, but the would-be killer proclaims his innocence. Can she get him acquitted and then land the more lucrative job? Also in the city is a lady named Dori (Sharon Lawrence) who suffers with acute guilt over an automobile accident that left her young son with a limp. Her husband (Mitchell Ryan) is dismayed that she still has not gone back to work or that she will not renew their mutual hobby, mountain climbing. Meanwhile, aspiring ballet dancer, Diane (Jennifer Garner) still has to ask her parents for money to make ends meet, something no family member likes, including Diane. Crossing paths with these folks are a Russian immigrant cab driver, the mayor's caring but aging mother, a poor teenager, and a businesswoman with eyes for Dori's husband. Suddenly, a deadly earthquake strikes, in NYC for goodness sake. Some folks are trapped in the subway, some on the street, and some in the upper levels of buildings. Who will survive? Does anyone care? This film is a very poor affair, suffering from implausability and stupidity, too. It's as though someone said, let's have an earthquake strike Manhattan because having people trapped in a subway system would be cool. No matter if the chance of an earthquake hitting NYC is slim to none, let's do it. Add on a fire chief who orders men into dangerous and avoidable situations, a mayor who can take time for a chat during a disaster, and a rock climbing mama who is the only one able to rescue her son and you have a film that goes way beyond credulity. The lame acting by nearly all thespians (Sharon Lawrence starts off well but loses her believability, too) does not help matters, either. The special effects are uneven, sometimes being quite good, and at other times, totally laughable. Costumes and production values are average at best, too. If you have a yen for disaster flicks, then you might take an interest in watching this one. For, in truth, it is a double dose of dire, once as an earthquake flick, and once as an extremely poor-quality film.

amish This movie was shown here (Israel) on the Hallmark channel in Dec 01. As a former New Yorker, and watching it in this post-9/11 era, it was truly eerie, especially since in this film, one of the few sites left standing and untouched was... the Twin Towers.This movie is based on a novel by one of NY's most familiar faces, former NBC newscaster, and my 'regular' source of info in my NY days, Chuck Scarborough. Perhaps only a real New Yorker could have imagined and foretold such scenes and, knowing the essence of a true New Yorker, written such speeches that eventually proved so prophetic and so amazingly close to reality. Besides the story and text, the scenes and special effects were awesome (even though you *know* looking at them that it's not real).This will no doubt prove to be the first in many similar disaster films that will be made about NY, be they natural or terrorist, but since this was done three years "before," it makes it more prophecy than mere fiction, and worth seeing.

DAN_CANTWELL I first read Chuck Scarboroughs' novel "Aftershock" in 1996 or 97. Having grown up in NY as a child, I was familiar was Scarborough from his anchoring the local Eyewitness news for WNBC ch 4. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, to the point that I reread it several times since. The piece of crap that aired on CBS bore no relation to the novel other than the fact that an earthquake struck the City of New York. Many subplots were missing, characters were added (i.e., the Russian cabbie [who the hell was he?]. I have wished that I could locate Chuck Scarboroughs' address and ask him how he could have greenlighted this garbage.