Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

jabrbi When you're halfway through a disaster movie and you find yourself rooting for the disaster, then you know that something's gone wrong. As usual for these types of movies I found myself hoping that all the lead characters would just die, the sooner the better. The only person I liked was the cranky artist who gets stuck in a lift. Other than that it's just a bunch of walking clichés that should have been shot at the earliest opportunity.Not only are the characters the usual clichés - whiny teenagers who fall apart at the first sign of trouble, the evil corporation bosses who prize money over safety, the old, exhausted boss due to retire who knows everything and the bureaucratic idiot replacement, the pilot hero who can keep flying for 150 hours straight, the dogged reporter, the bonkers hacker - but the plot holes are big enough to sink Chicago in. And, of course, nobody does anything logical.A huge plot point is that the power goes out in Chicago, and then there's a huge effort to bring the power back online, and then the 'hacker' who took the power out tries to bring the power back online, again. However, he seems to have no ability to see that the power is already on? Why? Don't bother looking for an explanation, there isn't one. So the power goes out, then it's on briefly, and then it's out again - because power plus power equals zero. So there's no power, except when a protagonist HAS to make a vital phone call, or when a siren HAS to go off on top of a building, or a computer connection has to be made, ...The movie looks like it had a decent enough budget, or there's warehouse in America with over a hundred hours of disaster footage. Sadly, the budget wasn't spent on a decent script, or better actors. A lot of lines felt as though they were place markers until a better line was created. Sadly, the better lines never turned up. Were the actors any good? Can't tell as there was no need for anyone to act, they just had to deliver awful lines with wooden faces.Why can't people make a disaster films and concentrate on a single storyline? Instead, you have dozens of sub-plots, side-plots, wasted-plots, irrelevant-plots, and go-nowhere-plots that just fill in the time between the opening and closing credits. This film is like an elongated episode in a naff soap opera. If you find that you can keep up with who all the characters are and what their issues are, then you've watched too much daytime soaps and need to get a life.As a cure for insomnia this is an excellent movie. That's about the only useful thing this film is good for.

docscholl Sort of like a train wreck, I had to watch this and part seven. Very goofy, but had some interesting yet predictable plot lines.The whole message of this series (at least the two parts I watched) seemed to be that we humans are bad, bad creatures. According to what I gleaned from these two parts: We and we alone caused global warming, should recycle more, should stop driving and should stop using so much energy. And of course, all energy companies are evil.A very preachy series! Oy!Some of the plots were predicable. Like Chandra West and Thomas Gibson in their obvious extra-marital affair, crisis with family, resolve issues during weather disaster.Randy Quaid was a hoot as he more or less did a reprise of his "Independence Day" role as a whacked-out misfit.A lot of the special effects were repeated in both 6 & 7 (like a skyline view of Chicago then a skyline of Washington, D.C., with the same carnage in the foreground - or a repeat shot of a power plant, one in Chicago, one in D.C.).I had to suspend disbelief as the time-line of many of these events and scenes defied logic. Overall – poorly written storyline with average acting and quirky special effects.

Mat If you thought Day after tomorrow was implausible, wait till you see this.Okay so the premise of most disaster films is usually a 1 in billion event occurring, compounded by other circumstances. In this case, the even is the joining of two huge storm systems. Fair enough so far. Oh but hold up, no, the "event" is the sabotage and subsequent destruction of the power grid.Next throw in loads of human interest elements - in this case a cheating husband, a psychotic gun-wielding boyfriend, a rebellious daughter, a hacker with a point to prove, a senator trying to push an agenda, a reporter trying to stand up against "the man", and a pregnant women stuck in an elevator.Finally add a handful of taster events to add excitement.Jeez if the director tried to fit in any more meaningless plot lines, there would have been no time less for the actual disaster, which, given the pitiful state of the computer graphics, was almost certainly the intention.Jeez, if you can't even model a truck convincingly, you really should not be taking on twisters, exploding power stations, Las Vegas getting ripped apart, or destroyed oil stations.In case you didn't already gather how appalling this movie is, let me just add that all three bad guys get killed in separate, and wholly ungratifying, implausible manners, that stunk more of moralising that good film-making.I'm have no problem with first month film students writing jaded, hackneyed, cliché-soaked scripts, but for god's sake, that doesn't mean anyone has to make them into movies!It manages to make the abysmally implausible 10.0 Apocalypse look not quite so dreadful. Avoid them both.

Robert W. Category 6 isn't going to blow you away (no pun intended,) It's not up to big budget Hollywood standards by ANY means. In some ways it is your typical made for TV disaster movie which I am sure had an astronomical budget for TV. All said and done the special effects were almost impressive save for a few horribly done CGI moments, and the acting overall wasn't bad. The film is chock full of familiar TV faces and at a running time of nearly three hours they do definitely give you an in depth look at the characters that saves it from being overly boring. On top of that it manages to be a little different by not only providing you with the story of a disaster about to strike Chicago but also a sub plot about an act of terrorism against Chicago's power stations that ultimately could lead to an even worse disaster. I've absolutely seen worse than this and I think people are being harsh. You have to take it for what it is which is a B-Movie, made for Television.Thomas Gibson (Greg from Dharma and Greg) plays Mitch Benson, the head of a small power company desperately trying to keep emergency services and customers online in the wake of a powerful storm moving towards them. Gibson is a little bland and shows emotion in a rather mechanical way but overall he does a decent job. He's basically Greg...and I think that's about the range of his acting ability but he holds his own. Nancy McKeon (Jo from Facts Of Life) plays one of the better roles as reporter Amy Harkin. McKeon is still a TV actress but she does a pretty good job at showing intensity and emotion and being a very strong female character and she's very good at being the reporter. Chandra West is Rebecca Kerns, the Public Relations person for Lexer, the enormous power company trying to push all the rules in order to take control of the country's power supply and be the sole provider. West is mostly there for looks, eye candy, and she doesn't have many roles and because of her character's role as the "home wrecker" she comes across as needy and whiny and you don't really care much for her. Nancy Anne Sakovich plays Jane Benson (wife to Gibson's character.) Her role is quite emotional and she does well although she plays depressed through the entire film. Her and Gibson have good chemistry and you do root for her. Ari Cohen is also good as Dan London, the systems analyst for Lexer who discovers Lexer's plan to cut costs and make millions at the sake of safety and decides to blow the whistle on the operation. Cohen really is not a good guy in this film but he plays the role sympathetically. The real talent and veterans of the film are Randy Quaid as Tornado Tommy, Dianne Wiest, and the terrific Brian Dennehy. Quaid is always good, even when he's in a bad role. He's watchable and funny and charismatic and a good character actor. Wiest has a smaller role but still quite good. She's forceful and strong and she commands a certain presence on screen. She's also a three time Oscar Nominee!! She's worth watching for in this film. Dennehy who I really enjoy is a strong macho kind of guy. He's rough around the edges but has a soft spot and that's exactly how he plays in this film. The guy is a veteran and an expert and he's great to watch. Unfortunately his role is not all that big either but he still raises the bar in this cast.This film would never walk away with any huge acclaim or awards but it's very watchable to someone who knows what they are going into. A lot of people enjoy B-Movies or made-for-TV specials and this one is actually pretty good. Some intense disaster scenes, a decent story, good direction by long time TV director Dick Lowry, and a not entirely unfortunate cast. Some of the acting is average...some is downright awful but the story holds it all together and you do care about some of the characters and even laughing at the sheer campiness of certain scenes is still fun. On top of being campy there is actually some very impressive disaster scenes!! Don't go into this expecting some huge bid budget magical disaster film...it's just fun, silly at times, but not entirely a waste. It's worth checking out if nothing else. 7/10