Nature Unleashed: Earthquake (Video 2005) Poster

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3/10
My Goodness! They stole CG effects form "Dantes Peak"
clive-1326 October 2005
Warning: Spoilers
To repeat, Someone got a hold of many of the special effect earthquake sequences from the film "Dantes PeaK" and splotched them into this overly long, odd, hybrid Three Mile Island/ Chernobyle rip off disaster movie. Not only are the sequences of freeway collapses and car crashes from "Peak", but many of the disintegrating brick and plaster buildings shown cracking and crashing about sure look like buildings from the town of Dantes Peak used in the film "Peak". I thought is mighty odd, but using my DVD unit to view these scenes frame by frame, one reads English on the signs plunging into the street, not Russian as they should, because this film is supposed to be set in a Russian government town in Siberia! At the end of this film the credits don't clarify anything. The film is Canadian made, and some of the shots of the Russian town looked to be filmed say, in Romania or maybe Poland. Somewhere in the old Soviet Union at least due to the Stalinist buildings and foreign auto plates. This film might have rated higher, say a 5 or a 6, if it had not been at and least 30 minutes shorter. Much can be said for brevity with a hackneyed plot line like this. You see, a new nuclear plant is ready to go online in Russia's Siberia ...... 100% power up. Gee, there is a large earth tremor....An American scientist is in charge of bringing the plant up to capacity.The scientist is a woman, with her two teenage kids in a school for foreign English speaking teenagers in the Company town in Siberia run by the Russians with American know how and technology. The Companies scientific headquarters are back in the states. The man who built this particular reactor is called upon to investigate cost overruns and is sent to the Russian town Oh I didn't tell you that the female American scientist and the guy who designed the reactor were separated and close to divorce? Gee there is another earth tremor..... Once disaster strikes this American family in Russia bad things start to happen. The mom and dad are both nuclear engineers or programmers or physicists, or some such. The high school kids are classic, The boy, a school cut up around 17, wants a motor bike and the girl, 15 and a goth, just wants away from her mom and her American School. GEE there is a BIG earthquake and the reactor looks like it is going into the China Syndrome and it's a race to unite the family and stop a nuclear disaster unparalleled in history. YAWN, YAWN AGAIN. It takes soooooo long for this to happen, you don't care about anything except, is this thing ever going to end? Pretty boring and what's with the jacked scenes from Dantes Peak?

Not recommended
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5/10
Not a total disaster of a disaster flick, but not very good, either
inkblot112 January 2013
Josh (Fintan McKeown) lives in a Russian city where a nuclear plant is present. In fact, he is an engineer at the facility while his ex-wife is a scientist there as well. Josh made plenty of mistakes as a husband and dad and, therefore, lives separately from his ex and two teenage kids. The two children have issues as well, for the son longs for a motorcycle, which his mother forbids, and the daughter is rebellious, too. One day, all Hades breaks loose, as an earthquake hits the region. The teenage girl, who skipped school, ends up on damaged bus, unable to leave a wounded teacher from her school. Most importantly, the nuclear plant is severely hurt, losing its precious cooling water supply. A meltdown may occur but Josh and the other plant operators are temporarily stymied about how to prevent the worst case scenario. In addition, the couple is worried about their missing children! Will a solution be found in time and the family reunited? This isn't the worst disaster flick of all time but its not great, either. None of the actors are well known and the script is cliché ridden, even down to an evil, conniving plant employee. But, for all that, it is still watchable, intriguing enough to entice its audience to stay with it until the resolution is known. So, if you are a fan of disaster and survival type movies, you might give it a go.
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3/10
Appalling acting mixed with ripped off disaster footage!
ichbing24 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I've come to expect sub-par sci-fi made for TV movies, but this is one of the worst acted flicks with stolen scenes from another disaster movie. While watching the earthquake destruction I noticed very familiar scenes of buildings collapsing and freeway ramps breaking apart. The footage is straight out of Dante's Peak! The horrific acting on everyone's part is annoying and keeps you from being able to get into the story without looking at the clock every few minutes. The fake Russian accents make it sound like everyone is developmentally disabled, not Russian. The children of the lead characters not only have different accents than their parents, but different from one another. It ends up being the age old story of the husband who did the family wrong and wins back the heart of the ex-wife by saving the children and restoring her trust and love. I know...original, huh? I want my last 2 hours back!
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2/10
Not recommended
ellenbronx13 August 2006
I was surprised to note that the film was released in 2004; it has a very "1960's" European feel in look and soundtrack. None of the supposedly US characters looks or sounds American; the hairstyles and clothes, again, are very retro and much of the dialog appears to have been looped--without the appropriate background noise! None of this would matter if the conflicts or characters were involving--but the action is very formulaic and the acting poor.It certainly is difficult to come up with new approaches to disaster-type scenarios on limited budgets, but "China Syndrome" and countless earthquake films have already been done. As the Bible--and Spielberg in his Oscar acceptance speech--said: "In the beginning was the word..." With or without a significant budget, there first needs to be decent script, and this one just doesn't work. If the creators of Mystery Theater 3000 were still doing their magic, this film would be a perfect candidate for parody.
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1/10
easily the worst of the genre i have seen so far
disdressed1216 April 2007
for me,this is easily the worst disaster movie i have watched to date.i didn't find it compelling at all,and the special effects were not believable.the movie was not exciting.usually,acting is not a big concern in these types of movies.however,in this movie the acting was the worst i have seen so far in the genre.i nearly quit watching before the end,but i decided to give it a chance.regrettably,it did not improve and i lost close to 90 minutes of my life.in my personal opinion,i would avoid this movie,as it is painfully tedious.i also felt embarrassed for the actors at times.the movie was directed by Tibor Takaks,who also directed,"The Gate" another movie i hated.he has directed other things since"The Gate",but i haven't seen any of them.anyway,I'd have to give "Nature Unleashed:Earthquake a dismal 1* star.
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How many times have I seen this on the Sci-Fi Channel???
stumpmee7710 March 2007
This is a rant, because I've just wasted time looking at another film and I'm sick of what I'm seeing:

Divorced and or on the verge of divorce scientist couples squabbling (One of the reasons I loved Locusts the 8th Plague cause it depicted a harmonious (sp) couple by and large; wow it can be done!)? And I notice no one ever pulls the one who's the co-worker aside to implore him/her to focus on what they're hired to do and push the personal history mess in the back of their heads!

Kids more likable and mature than the adults? I absolutely hated Miss Arrogant Female Scientist until the last half hour of this movie. The husband was a little more likable but after the way she addressed him in one scene; Oh My God, a self-respecting man would either, one, tell her to live with him being there or better yet call for a replacement for this job and get the first plane out of Russia.

A someone in the installation pushing for a deadline, thus causing errors which bring about the film's major catastrophe?

Kid--The couples kid--why can't this be a child they don't know?--hopelessly trapped calling for parent?

And this channel has the nerve to dub these things "an original movie"?????

Sci-Fi I beg the powers that be, hire someone, anyone, who can be more creative and dream up more exciting scenarios for these original films--Oh that can be anybody, just about anybody from the age of 10 up. Thank you.
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3/10
Formula TV Drama, but has some good points
mindcat22 May 2008
Ho-Dee-Ho, what should I have expected? I bought this TV drama on DVD for under 5 dollars so could I be disappointed, really? No, I wasn't and I'm afraid the standard low brow for midget minds situational disaster flick formula is in force here.

A family with teenage kids. The daughter looks like a slut, but so what? An improbable situation, a divorced American family in Russia, where Dad is an engineer, but his wife appears to have most of the smarts.

What can be said formula take over. Family divorced, and kids think Mom was a douche bag for divorcing Pop. We never learn why they were divorced or why the kids and ex are in Russia to begin with.

No matter an earthquake strikes where golly, you would think, the Russians would think maybe it wouldn't. Dumb Russies.

The rest is pablum for a 90 minute occasional glance at the screen to be sure your movie smeller didn't predict way ahead how it would end.

The brave young and arrogant 17 year old heart throb, the Artie- terribly trashy looking daughter, the very smart Mom who immediately sees a circuit board needs resistors bypassed with her cast off wedding ring.

Oh, well, you'll find this flick plays well and probably isn't a total disaster if you buy the DVD for under 3 dollars. I want a partial refund on what I paid.
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3/10
A definite hack job, but not the worst movie
mreddish-879-65024530 December 2019
If I did not know better, I'd have thought Ed Wood did this movie. It has its pros and cons. The story isn't bad. The setup is perfect if you're a disaster movie junkie, but does fall short of any Irwin Allen classic. The cons are the acting, the acting, and the acting.
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3/10
It managed about 0.1 on the Richter Scale...
paul_haakonsen1 June 2021
Well, sure, I was lured in to watching the 2005 natural disaster movie "Nature Unleashed: Earthquake" here in 2021. And it was because of the movie's cover, it being a natural disaster movie, and also because it was movie that I hadn't already seen, that I sat down to watch this 2005 movie from writer Andy Hurst and director Tibor Takács.

And there shall be no doubt about this when I say that "Nature Unleashed: Earthquake" was by no means a great movie. In fact, the movie's cover was actually the best part about the entire feature. Sad as that may be.

Yeah, the storyline was pretty generic, even for a natural disaster movie. So there wasn't much of any overly interesting entertainment factors to be had here. The whole movie was as predictable as it was generic.

It should be said, though, that some of the scenes with the disaster wrecked by the earthquake tremors weren't actually all that bad. But then on the other hand there were scenes of the same kind that was just downright laughable and painful to witness. Most of the scenes during the quakes just didn't have enough sense of chaos and destruction to it, which ultimately lead to some rather unconvincing scenes, which made the movie suffer terribly. Especially since a natural disaster movie needs to have impact, impressive CGI scenes and lots of edge-of-the-seat moments to capture the audience. That just wasn't present in the 2005 movie "Nature Unleashed: Earthquake".

And it didn't really help much that the characters in the movie were written as generic, wooden and rigid, most of which you don't even really care about one ounce.

All in all, then "Nature Unleashed: Earthquake" was a rather forgettable movie and a very stale experience for a natural disaster movie. I would actually recommend that you don't waste your time, money or effort on this 2005 movie, because it really wasn't worth it.

My rating of "Nature Unleashed: Earthquake" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.
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8/10
This movie does not deserve such awful reviews
Eventuallyequalsalways29 December 2008
When you set forth to write a movie review, you should have some theme for your comments, and I believe the creators of this website would prefer you give a prospective viewer some idea about the work, whether or not it is competently crafted, entertaining, or pure crap. Too often, I find that reviewers feed on each other like bottom-feeding snails.....if one or two of the early reviewers hate the film, then most subsequent reviews echo their thoughts. This film was thoroughly trashed by the reviews I have read. But it is truly not that bad. It follows a script, something some of the blockbusters seem to disregard these days. It is entertaining with lots of the elements which seem to attract viewers. It has interesting characters, conflict between the characters, a plot, all elements which tend to please people who want to be shown a story which is not totally predictable. The guys and girls who created this movie ought to be given a break. They did the best they could working with a limited budget. I enjoyed the time I spent with this film. I think you will enjoy it also.
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9/10
Above average disaster movie
JimmyL555527 July 2007
I read everyone else's reviews & comments and I disagree with them all. First, this is not a ho-hum, boring movie. An earthquake cripples a Russian power plant threatening a meltdown, and it's a race against time to avert the disaster. Add into the mix a Russian supervisor who refuses to accept the idea of anything wrong, and will stop at nothing to keep the truth from getting out, even if it means locking the engineer near the core, and trying to run away when confronted with the truth. That is very believable. This movie is well-paced, and doesn't take long to get started. And once it gets going, you're on a roller-coaster ride of suspense. The scene in the elevator shaft reminds me of the suspense in TOWERING INFERNO and POSEIDON ADVENTURE. The kids are very believable American youngsters trying to deal with their parents' separation, and fate forces them to work together. Maybe it's all cliché, maybe not. But I like this movie. Maybe the special effects were taken from DANTE'S PEAK, I don't know. Frankly, I don't care, since they're very brief and quick. Only when scenes are obviously stolen from other movies do I care, like when they stole footage from AIRPORT 1975 to create SONIC IMPACT. But try it yourself. You may be surprised.
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