<p>Just saw the trailer for 2012, which looks essentially like The Day After Tomorrow by way of Independence Day, only with better special effects. (And - a redeeming factor in any movie - John Cusack!) It made me wonder - are disaster movies always bad? The premises often seem fascinating, and the budgets are usually huge, but then something goes wrong and they pretty much suck. Can you name some good ones, or at any rate disaster movies that are guilty pleasures?</p>
<p>I don’t know if Titanic is considered part of this genre - I don’t think of it that way because the first half of the movie stands up so well as a dramatic period piece. I haven’t seen it in years, but I liked most of it except for the Billy Zane character. I think that Independence Day is one of the 10 worst movies ever made (despite Will Smith’s good performance) - the writers should have had their union cards yanked after that one. The disaster flicks of the 1970s were their own kind of awful. My kids roar at the Airport movies and the youngest wanted to know, “Did people really think this was decent?” </p>
<p>It depends on how you define “disaster movie,” I guess. Wikipedia includes The Perfect Storm, which is a very good movie - but I consider it more of an adventure film with an unfortunate ending. I don’t mean sci-fi films, either - I like most of those. Am I just blanking on the names of some good disaster films?</p>
<p>Apollo 13 was rather disasterish, but it was really good.
Jurassic Park was also rather disasterish.
Wall-E is kind of about environmental disaster.</p>
<p>Twister was excellent for comedy value, and also for spotting non-scientific fabrications.</p>
<p>Pet peeve: I’ve never seen a building collapse realistically in a movie, except kind-of for in Quantum of Solace.</p>
<p>But yeah, the “good disaster movie” is a largely untapped concept.</p>
<p>If you define “good” by laughs-per-dollar, Airplane was the best.</p>
<p>Oh, you mean serious disaster movies? Ummm, can’t think of a good one. I spent most of Titanic wishing they had hired a script-writer or 2, somewhere, at some point, to come up with actual dialog…</p>
<p>Day After Tomorrow has some pretty Bad Science, but I think this is intentional. Some of it is based on actual hypotheses (e.g. shutdown of thermohaline circulation), just accelerated ridiculously. Plus it makes me feel cozy – being trapped in a library with a fireplace while it’s blizzarding outside? </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Airplane! (Yeah - not really a disaster movie but at least a spoof of disaster movies)</p></li>
<li><p>Mars Attacks! (Okay another comedy but I liked it)</p></li>
<li><p>Independence Day </p></li>
<li><p>Poseidon Adventure (original)</p></li>
<li><p>Earthquake! (Another of the single word titled disaster movies. I remember when it came out they put the huge speakers in the theaters to make the rumble of the quake. To be honest I don’t really remember much of the movie though so it might not have been so memorable)</p></li>
<li><p>Not really a disaster movie although it was post-disaster - Planet of the Apes (original with Charleton Heston).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Definitely not the newer ‘Titanic’ which was just a love story.</p>
<p>Some of the newer disaster flicks are so over the top with the CGI special effects that they’re fairly ridiculous and not realistic at all - worse than the old movies with the cheezy special effects of the day.</p>
<p>Frazzled: you nailed Titanic precisely in that it’s two different movies: Part I, the Period Piece. Part II, the run-of-the-mill disasetr movie.</p>
<p>Dragon: I oft wished I had been on the scriptwriting team for Airplane. But as for Titanic, it was as much as Leonardo di Caprio’s inability to utter a line of period dialogue to save his life, some anachronisms aside. He was equally dreadful in a remake of “The Man in the Iron Mask”(!!!)…just staggeringly bad. </p>
<p>Which is why I put off seeing “Aviator” for a long time and was then pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>*Dante’s Peak *- I think it came out the same year Volcano popped out; it is not the greatest disaster movie, but it was filmed in the beautiful town of Wallace, Idaho, and the action supposedly takes place in Washington State.</p>
<p>*Apollo 13 *- one of my all-time favorites.</p>
<p>*The Abyss *- a sci-fi underwater disaster movie; it creeps me out every time I watch it.</p>
<p>My H seems to like any movie with an airplane or a spacecraft in trouble: AirForce One, Executive Decision, etc. no matter how bad the movies are.</p>
<p>I can’t tell you how glad I am that you mentioned Mars Attacks!, ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad. I considered putting it on my list, but it’s one of those movies that’s very telling about a person, and I didn’t want to be the first to mention it. =)</p>
<p>That movie makes me laugh so hard that I cry a little.</p>
<p>My dh reminded me about Deep Impact, which was only the first earth-on-a-collision-course-with-an-asteroid movie of 1998. It had a great cast, as so many disaster movies do - Morgan Freeman (he should play every movie president), Tea Leoni, Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave (! - well, everyone needs a retirement fund). It was exponentially less stupid than Armageddon, released the same year. I guess half the fun of these movies is in seeing good actors battle ridiculous dialog and situations. And it’s better to see a great star like Duvall in a film with pretty good special effects, than to see great stars like Gloria Swanson (as herself) in one of the Airport movies, or poor Henry Fonda in The Swarm, to name two awful films from the 1970s.</p>
<p>I think of The Abyss as a sci-fi film, and Apollo 13 as a drama (almost thriller). Maybe it’s all in my head - if it’s a good movie, it can’t be a disaster flick! :D</p>
<p>I’ve gotta stand up for Leo, TheDad - I think he’s a terrific actor. He’s done some period films with Martin Scorsese and I’ve believed every word. (Also saw the trailer for Shutter Island, directed by Scorsese, staring diCaprio and Ben Kingsley - looks like a great movie!) But I haven’t really watched Titanic for maybe 10 years, probably because 2 of my girls had a major obsession with it when it was first released. Remember how droves of pre-teen girls would go every Saturday for weeks on end?
2012 as well, apparently. Even among the few folks who study the Mayan Long Count calendar, there’s debate about what it means. Personally, I’ll be paying all my bills that December.</p>
<p>I was going to mention Deep Impact, too. It was less about the disaster than about the sacrifices some of the characters make for others (something I really liked). That’s also an element of The Poseidon Adventure, but it’s a lot more heavy-handed.</p>
<p>And hey, those old disaster flicks like Earthquake! and The Towering Inferno were cheesy, but fun. Victorial Principal has a small (but memorable) role in Earthquake–opposite one of the worst movie performances ever, from Marjoe Gortner.</p>
<p>I loved those cheesy disaster movies as a kid. All the different Airport ones, Earthquake and don’t forget the Towering Inferno! We use to joke that if there was a real disaster we would want to have George Kennedy or Charlton Heston there to help us!</p>
<p>“Volcano,” released in 1997, was a real turkey, the premise being a volcano erupting in Los Angeles not far from the La Brea Tar Pits.
We were paid by the studio to move from our home for two nights to accommodate filming on our street and then saw the flick at the Beverly Center, not far from where the volcano supposedly erupted. The theater didn’t shake when the volcano did erupt, fwiw.</p>
I don’t mean sci-fi films, either - I like most of those. Am I just blanking on the names of some good disaster films?</p>