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user\nI was very disappointed by this movie. Ms English who says that she is a fan of the original movie seemed to have taken a great piece of artistic work, and transformed it into a flat-lined \"ho-hum\" you've come a long way baby production. I tried to like Meg Ryan's Mary Haines, but she was just boring. She didn't seem to feel anything about her husband's affair. There was no emotional struggle, no deep hurt. In the original 1939 movie Norma Shearer's Mary Haines felt betrayed, shocked, vulnerable, confused and angry. The 2008 production was more about some fake sisterhood theme, (Actually my wife's words)and didn't make you shed a tear or even chuckle. The only performances that were note worthy we're of Debra Messing, and Bette Midler. (I wanted more of Bette.) There was really no protagonist in this movie. The Sylvia Fowler character had too many sub themes to it. And Crystal Allen had no fire. The remake of the department store encounter with Annette Benning, and Miss Mendez was Luke warm. Also the pacing was slow as well. Obviously the 1939 version needed to be updated, but this one wasn't it. The reason that the original version worked so well was that the characters were dealing with \"man\" problems. A subject by the way which isn't out-dated. The magic of the original movie was that the movie was about both sexes, while you never saw the men.
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user\nThis film could have been a decent re-make, and gosh knows it tried (or Ms. English tried). Assembling talented actors together with a successful & experienced writer/director should be a formula for a decent film. But Ms. English's experience - according to her IMDb bio - is exclusively limited to television work, and it is glaringly obvious throughout this film.
I am surprised that none of the reviews I have read mention what I found most unlikeable about this film, and what kept it from reaching even a portion of its potential: it looked and felt like it was made for television. To give some credit to Ms. English, many of the jokes that simply did NOT work on a movie screen would have been terrific on TV (and maybe a laugh track would have helped). So much of the camera usage and the lighting would have played out fine on TV but looked awkward or odd on a big screen. If the whole film had been chopped up into a mini-series or a sit-com, I think it could have worked. But this is cinema and sadly Ms. English's talents didn't translate. I cringed at so many different points in my embarrassment for the actors & the writers that I felt like I came out of the theater half shriveled! Meg Ryan is her usual perky, cute self (except for the awful plastic surgery she has had on her face), but where did she have a chance to use her talent?! She has made films where she doesn't recreate her stereo-typed role and done them well... but not here. Annette Bening seemed to simply go through the motions - such a great talent and yet such a poor performance! I enjoyed the other women characters but they were more caricature than substance, and it was sad to see. What worked in this film in the 1930s doesn't translate to the 2000s, and no one helped Ms. English get the changes & updates or subtleties right. If only she (as writer, director AND producer) had reached out for some assistance, I think it could have been good. But it was not.
It's so frustrating to go to a movie that has good stars and a good writer or director and come away feeling it was a waste of everyone's time & money! This New Yorker cartoon I saw yesterday is appropriate: A few movie execs are having a meeting & the caption reads: \"Let's remake a classic with worse everything!\"
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user\nThis movie is not a comedy. It is not even funny in the \"this movie is so bad it's funny\" department. Rather, it is just plain bad. Other reviewers mention the bad lighting, but beyond that is the abundance of bad plastic surgery.
Meanwhile, a lot of great acting talent was wasted on a poor screenplay and uninspired direction. The main characters are one-dimensional and boring. (It is hard to feel sympathy for any of them). It is also hard to see the four characters as close friends. It seems like just a bunch of women thrown together, pretending to be close.
I won't list all of the problems with this movie, as it doesn't merit that much of anyone's attention. (Nor is it worth the time it takes to watch it).
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user\nImagine a film the complete opposite of Lawrence of Arabia, instead of having an all male cast, it has an all female cast. Instead of being set in the barren deserts of Arabia, it is set in the bulging metropolis of New York City. And instead of it being one of the greatest films ever made, it is one of the most pointless, boring and forgettable.
The film concerns Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) a perfect wife and mother, the envy of all others in her high society Manhatten social circle. She is painted as a women bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders, despite the fact she needs a live in nanny and housekeeper to cope with her one child. But I don't want to be too hard on her, Mary does all this whilst taking a liassez-faire attitude towards the fashion designing job her father has given her. This idyllic lifestyle cannot last forever though and things start to crash in a very real way.
Mary's husband is cheating on her and her father fires her for not working hard enough. She is quite naturally upset and breaks down a little.
Mary needs to bounce back though, for the sake of her impressionable young daughter and for herself. She does this through rehab, hair straightening and designing her own line of clothes; though amazingly for this kind of film, not a montage. Mary succeeds; her daughter loves her, her mother loves her, her friends love her and her husband decides he loves her now. She decides to take her cheating husband back after realising it was her fault he cheated, as she didn't dote on him enough.
The films one saving grace is that it doesn't go down the \"all men are evil\" route.
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user\nI have never seen the original 1930s version of the film, but this remake is one of the worst I have seen from a major production studio in years. Seeing actors such as Meg Ryan and Annette Bening, once near A level talents, sleepwalk their way through poorly scripted roles is painful. There appeared to be no desire to be in front of the camera for anyone in this film.
Jada Pinkett Smith and Debra Messing play worthless roles that have no bearing on the plot and add no entertainment value. Jada Pinkett Smith's character is used as nothing more than a ploy to appear modern, having an African American lesbian character, but in actuality she is there to just look cool. There is no actual reason why Messing in this film other than to fill out the amount of women in the original I take.
The side characters played by Eva Mendes and Debi Mazar are stereotypical female characters, with Mendes portraying the vixen looking to steal the wealthy but bored and mildly neglected husband and Mazar covering the gossip roles.
The movie is boring, lacking charm, humor, or sympathy for any characters. It almost felt like the movie was a punishment for everyone involved, whether in front of or behind the camera.
There is one glimmering hope in the film, however little it is allowed to shine surrounded by the dim and dying stars around it is Cloris Leachman. Leachman is still an amazing talent that brings her remarkable charm and humor to the film, in the small role that she has.
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user\nThe Women (2008) by Diane English is sadly such a waste of talent. With Annette Benning, Candice Bergen, Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman whom I like and enjoy in everything I've seen them, and Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, and Eva Mendes who may not be my favorite actors but are nice to look at, how could the movie be boring, predictable, embarrassing, sloppy, and simply bad? It was made by Diane English who is known as the writer of the very successful TV show Murphy Brown, and it is her first movie for which she wrote a script. The movie has been a labor of love for English who had tried for many years to make it happen and I respect that. I even found the scenes with the supporting players, Bergen, Leechaman, Carry Fisher and Bette Middler in short but memorable cameos, funny, smart, and enjoyable but in general the movie is a second hand \"Sex and the City\" which was released few months ago. I did not find Sex and the City very good when I saw it but next to The Women, it was simply brilliant. At least, Sex and the City spared us the long and tasteless scene in the hospital's delivery room where one of the characters' was having a baby and her friends were there supporting her. Poor Debra Messing, what did she do to deserve that nightmare she was put through and we, the viewers together with her? The movies like \"The Women\" give the whole genre, chick flicks, a bad name. It is nothing wrong with the genre, but why is it so difficult to make a really good comedy about female friendships and hardships, about dealing with marriage, motherhood, and proving yourself professionally? These are all very compelling and important subjects any modern woman can relate to. Why making movies with the lines, dialogs, and situations so clichéd, predictable, not funny and insulting that they will be forgotten as soon as the movie is over?
After I saw the new movie, I checked out from my local library the original The Women and I truly enjoyed it. The story was told much better 70 years ago, and kept my interest all the way. The old movie had a real star power.
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user\nGeorge Cukor's The Women remains one of the glittering gems of 1939, Hollywood's most golden of golden years. The film crackled and sparked and it's absence of males was a subtle touch, hardly noticed because of all the fine entertainment.
Flash forward. We see Fifth Avenue in New York City, in front of Saks. Large crowds bustle along the Avenue...but something's off. The shot reveals only well dressed (attractive and young) women. Creepier than I Am Legend, the visual concept continues, inside the store and later at a large fashion show. What NYC fashion show doesn't have at least 5 gay men? The \"no men\" rule is rammed down our throats creating an alien world, off balance and distracting.
Enter Meg Ryan, first seen digging in her garden wearing a ridiculous get-up complete with her retro curls and flailing arms. I immediately sympathized with her husband and could understand why he looked elsewhere. Later in the film she morphs into an older Jennifer Aniston look and keeps her arms at her sides. This seems intentional as if to say \"Look! I can still be relevant!\" Ryan's character is loaded down with a coven of miss-matched friends (insert Sex and the City comparison here) who, if it were real life, would despise each other. Annette Bening plays the power bitch, who during the course of the film realizes her life's dream doesn't really make her happy. Jada Pinkett Smith is the power lesbian, all atitudinous with no use for any of the men who aren't there. Debra Messing is some sort of baby factory that eats a lot. Eva Mendes is an odd choice for the bad girl to say the least. She looks fake, acts fake and any humor she tries to demonstrate falls flat. Someone's comment on here that she looked trans-gender was spot on. Other various stars show up, to rearrange the furniture on this Titanic.
The only thing that would have saved this would have been the brilliant casting of Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. They could have named their price, tucked their tongues firmly into their cheeks and pulled off something very clever and profitable. But no, Hollywood thinks of itself way too highly for that kind of exploitation. Instead we're given this thing that lumbers along awkwardly with no sparkle. Entire sections of dialog from the original are lifted and plopped down into a scene with awful results. At one point Ryan exclaims something along the lines of, \"This isn't a 1930's movie!\" No Meg, it's not.
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user\nI went along to this movie with some trepidation; the original is a masterpiece of both writing and acting and unfortunately my fears were realized. This is a humorless piece of work and I sat in the theater waiting for the wit and humor to begin- I'm still waiting, it seems. Updating the storyline to the present time just didn't work and the altering of characters an absolute travesty- why did they introduce Bette Midler's character when she disappeared just as quickly as she arrived; the related character in the 1939 original was an integral part of the plot. The women in the cinema laughed a few times but nothing touched me as being funny with the exception of a line from Meg Ryan talking to her mother about her situation and telling her that 'it's not like a 1930's movie'- I sorely wished I was viewing the 1930's version. It was all too touchy feely 'sisters stick together' and really needing some of the acerbic wit and clever dialog from the original play- I still watch the original movie and pick up a line that I have never caught before. There is no sense of closure to this new version, and whilst the 1939 movie is politically incorrect by todays standards, each thread was tied up and when the movie ended- it did so strongly. This remake should be labeled with a warning for any viewers- if you know the original, don't bother: I felt cheated by losing part of my life in a cinema watching this unmemorable piece of fluff. Bring on the Jungle Red!!
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user\nSaw this movie last night. I don't usually comment good or bad, as I think movies are like books in that there is something for everyone and everyone is different, tastes vary, yadda yadda. This movie was bad. By the end I thought, oh my, this is testing my patience. How many women really look and live like this when they hit \"rock bottom\" and if I could just borrow some cash from mum and carry out to live my fashion designing dreams - gosh, life would be great! I was out for a nice chick-date flick with my girl (my darling hubby likes watching movies together and I knew this wouldn't be his thing), something light and easy on the senses, but this was one bad movie. We are intelligent and interesting movie watchers and this movie wasn't that. Annette Benning is a great actress, she held her own. Bad. Bad.
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user\nNo! no - No - NO! My entire being is revolting against this dreadful remake of a classic movie. I knew we were heading for trouble from the moment Meg Ryan appeared on screen with her ridiculous hair and clothing - literally looking like a scarecrow in that garden she was digging. Meg Ryan playing Meg Ryan - how tiresome is that?! And it got worse ... so much worse. The horribly cliché lines, the stock characters, the increasing sense I was watching a spin-off of \"The First Wives Club\" and the ultimate hackneyed schtick in the delivery room. How many times have I seen this movie? Only once, but it feel like a dozen times - nothing original or fresh about it. For shame!
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user\nUpdating of the Clare Booth Luce play and the 1939 movie is a major disappointment. The cast of women is excellent, most of the individual scenes work but nothing hangs together. There is no connection from scene to scene almost as if the film was crafted in parts and then assembled in a vacuum. Granted the story of a woman dealing with her husband's infidelity and how she is helped and hindered by her friends is a less shocking one now in an age when divorce is so common, but at the same time its just as timely as ever, I just wish they could have managed to connect all of the pieces together because as it stands now you really don't feel pulled along by the plot. Wait for Cable.
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user\nThis is, in simple terms, one of the worst films ever made. The story goes way beyond being tasteless and judging by the actors performance, they know it. There just in not one single redemming quality of this film. Patrick Swayze will have to overcome some major obstacles in his career, before people forget about this turkey.
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user\nIt's about time for a female boxing flick, but this one ain't it. Though the acting isn't too bad, the predictable storyline and silly dialogue pretty much ruin this one from the get go. To top it off, the boxing scenes display zero tension. Come on! How hard is it to make a boxing match seem exciting??!!
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user\nI hired the DVD yesterday and first of all it started bad, it's 4:3 aspect ratio film, and it just keeps getting worse, the acting is so bad and the movie itself is way to predictable, I was like watching the movie and said to myself: this going to happen next and guess what happened? right...
if you want to see a good action boxing movie, don't watch this one you'll end disappointed on this low-budget movie like I did. go and see Ali its way better!
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user\nWoa, talk about awful. Do not waste your time. I wish I had seen the other use comments first.
I have to admit, I didn't watch the whole thing. It was just too horrible. The worst, sappiest dialogue... I could go on and on. But what really made it unwatchable was the direction. The poor actors. You can't even tell if they have any talent because they not only have pathetic lines to speak but the director gave them no action. If you check the director's filmography on this site you will see why this film didn't have a chance.
This would not even be good as a made for TV flick.
Ouch!
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user\nThis movie was a complete waste of time. The soundtrack was bad, story was lame and predictable, and the acting was terrible. One of the worst 25 movies I have ever seen. After the first ten minutes, the rest of the film was completely obvious.
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user\nThis movie was terrible! My friend and I were so bored by it we fast forwarded through the last half of the movie just to see what happened. It's the typical sports thing, she either wins or she loses. The only remotely interesting thing was when the one guy refers to someone as a Veg-e-tab-le. That will be a line my friend and I bring up for years to come reminding us of this colossal cheesy cliche waste of time
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user\nThe horror. The film about the Nazis - the Germans. The murderers of babies, young girls rapists ... For that they regret? What are they interested in doing thousands of miles away from Germany? You do not come to mind is? Fascists are now good Samaritans? Think, killed, tortured, 27 million people. No, of course, they do not want. They were forced to Hitler, he gave each of them, and forced to kill: every fourth inhabitant of Belarus peace, all Jews, Gypsies ... Killing the Slavs. The facts: At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when taken prisoner by fascist (German), they were defiant and brazen. We kill you all, and so on. Since 1943, when they were taken captive, they suddenly became anti-fascists and peaceful peasants who were forced to Hitler, and personally. For such films should be put to prison for life for the glorification of fascism.
If you want to see what they did, yet went to Stalingrad, then watch the movie \"Come and see\" (1985).
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user\nOne would think that with the incredible backdrop of WWII Stalingrad that the writers would come up with a script. Nope. There is NO story here! It's like porn, vignettes of violence interrupted by pathetic, rote, and meaningless dialogue.
A bunch of Germans march around shooting and getting shot. Slowly there are fewer Germans to march around, shoot, and get shot. Then there are no Germans to march around, shoot, and get shot.
Pretty bad.
Chilcoot
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user\nDo people rate this movie highly because it's a foreign war movie???
To me it's nothing more than a bad Hollywood war movie in German.
This movie is so bad on so many levels. To even mention it along with Platoon or Full Metal Jacket is absurd. The battle sequences are pathetic, the dialog and acting atrocious.
This so called group of \"storm troopers\" are regulars in the Wermacht. Not SS troops. There is so much wrong with this movie it's sad. Bad editing, bad acting. It's got it all.
The movie goes on and on and on as though the audience should be made to suffer as much as the soldiers did.
I read in a review that the this film had a $20 million budget.
For real? Where was it spent? In the fake train car sequences? In the pathetic \"special effects\"? Ugh.
As a WWII history buff, and WWII movie fan, I found this movie to be a serious disappointment.
For an excellent alternative war movie check out \"The Beast\". (Not a WWII movie, but still outstanding)
Don't bother with this one.
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user\nI don't know, maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this kind of movie, but it was full of trite melodrama. It was too long and seemed at least mildly disjointed (granted, I didn't pay full attention...). For a more entertaining depiction of the battle of Stalingrad, see Enemy At The Gates. True, some pretentious folks will scoff because it's a Hollywood film, and doesn't show \"the gritty reality of war\" like this \"wonderful foreign film\" does, but it has better flow and is all around just more fun to watch. Besides, there are already enough contrivedly \"gritty\" war movies, and this one just seemed amateurly done. But hey, you might like it, so go right ahead; it just wasn't for me.
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user\nI love Das Boot. I hoped for something along similar lines -- a realistic war movie, portraying soliders and civilians on both sides as real people, with both the joy and pain of combat.
Unfortunately, Stalingrad appears to have been written by a third grader and directed by a fifth-grade student. Major pieces of the movie simply appear missing, leaving it completely disjointed. The dialogue in translation is ridiculous, but appears no better in the native tongue; you only have to watch the actors' faces during the bad moments of dialogue to realize just how bad this movie is.
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user\nThe war in the East,as the Germans referred to the WW2 Soviet-Nazi conflict, was a war of annihilation on the part of the Germany. 90% of the German army were in the Soviet Union fighting. Their ultimate aim was to wipe out the so called \"sub human (Untermensch)\" Russian population and colonize the mainly empty country with German settlers after they had won.
Read \"Hitler's Willing Executioners.\"
Here we have the German army presented as innocent victims and not as Nazi mass murderers. When are modern German film makers going to be honest and face up to the past?
Better see the Russian film \"Come and See\" instead!
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user\nWhat a sucky movie. This is without a doubt a low-class B movie. The German elite StormTroopers assault Russian bunkers en masse like an old WW1 battle. The acting is mediocre, the plot thin and threadlike. It's hard sometimes to follow where it's going. The action sequences are pretty worthless (when it shows any), except for the fact that they do use authentic equipment/vehicles from WW2. This is in NO WAY on the same level as \"Saving Pvt. Ryan\" or \"Platoon\". Lots of worthless attempts at character development, which lead nowhere. Old theme good officer/bad officer that's highly predictable. Even the action sequences look like a 12yr old kid set them up. I could have directed better. Too bad this is the same guy that did \"Das Boot (The Boat)\", because that was a dang good movie. He must have partied too much after that success because he sure lost his touch when it came to this film. I bought it on DVD, better to rent it instead.
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user\nI don't usually like TV movies, I reckon that if the thing was any good it would make it to Hollywood. This one though is better than average, pretty high production values, a few interesting story twists and some nice shots of NYC (along with Toronto) hold the interest.
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user\nAs bad as they get. This film commits the fatal error of making the viewer not care what happens to characters. The two women in this flick are so stupid that you begin to root for the bad guys so this thing would end.
This film is one of the few that was so bad that I had to turn to another channel.
Put in highbrow language, this film lacks verisimilitude. People, not even people from Ohio, simply do not act like this. Well, maybe the writers do.
There is not enough beer in the world to make this film bearable.
F903
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user\nA really wonderful cast and very talented technical crew wasted their valuable career time, and our equally valuable leisure time, by bothering to support this utterly predictable and plainly formulaic piece of commercial junk. The movie is based upon a really good and very topical idea but both the producers and the director simply applied the standard Hollywood 'disaster movie' formula and thereby ruined any potential value from the production.
An unusually high tide and very strong gale conditions combine to produce a record high storm surge that overwhelms London and floods most of the Thames Valley. The plot centers around a heroic scientist (Tom Courtenay) who alerts the authorities of the danger and ultimately saves the day, a glamorous female police chief who runs the entire show and an embattled Deputy Prime Minister (David Suchet) who tries to look important.
But it's all so unreal that one feels like an extended tea break after just 30 minutes. The young glamorous female Police Commissioner demands complete authority over the army during a declared State of Emergency and gets it (as if!). The experienced General is just pushed aside like a complete moron who has to lick her boots because of her obviously superior capacity. The trouble is that our female supremo, whilst now responsible for millions of lives, spends most of her time worrying over the fate of her two daughters who have taken a trip to South West London and haven't telephoned to say they were alright. So our mighty woman sets her staff to look for them and decides that the sole priority for all the army and the rescue services must be South West London and not any other quarter of the city. Of course the Minister, the Army and the entire entourage accept her prioritization without question. One can only assume they all had property there. When her children are eventually found after endless reports and efforts by her staff she is told by our male hero, 'Thank God they're safe, that's the main thing'. Never mind about the millions of others or all the other responsibilities she was supposed to control; as long as her own kids were safe everything was alright.
This film is just another excuse to push the same old female chauvinist sexist clap trap that women are the clever, mindful, caring and clearly able leaders whilst men are good for nothing except physical bravery, mindless strength and very specialist knowledge. And yet the one simple instruction that she could have given the populace; namely to go to the nearest tall building and calmly go up to the 4th floor or above and await instructions when the waters recede was never given by this female super hero - or indeed anyone else. The whole problem was so simple to solve and yet millions of people apparently didn't think of simply going upstairs! Pathetic rubbish.
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user\nThere's something intriguing about disaster movies. The simple, primal premise can lead to several great stories. Granted, most disaster movies tend to explore familiar territory instead but I can usually live with that.
Unfortunately, Flood probably marks the low point in the history of this sub-genre. Robert Carlyle is undoubtedly the star of the movie, even though screen time is split between different locations and characters. He gives a barely decent performance. As well, Joanne Whalley is very uneven. Veteran actor Tom Courtenay (he played in Doctor Zhivago for heaven's sake) is particularly bad. I mean, his timing is completely off most of the time and his characterization is extremely poor. What an embarrassing performance for that man. The rest of the cast ranges from decent to really bad with one exception: Jessalyn Gilsig, whom I thought might be there as a plot device/eye candy gives by far the most convincing performance. Doesn't mean much considering how bad everybody else is but still nice to see that she cared.
The script is really bad, confusing and cliché. Some of the worse lines I have heard in quite some time are delivered by the actors one after the other.You've seen this story a thousand times. It employs every dramatic hook and tear-jerkers you've seen in \"Outbreak\", \"Armageddon\", the Poseidon movies (original and remake) and many others.
The direction is awful. No sense of timing, nothing inspired. The shots are bland, dialog and action both fail to flow. Editing is bad but how do you edit such a mess? Without a doubt, this movie tried to rely way too much on (rather poor) CGI. The human factor, the drama and struggles of the characters are glossed over. Scenes where the characters must actually face the flood are rare and poorly done. The made-for-TV feel gives nausea. Some guy is supposed to go down a rope from an helicopter? No problem, let's show him inside a helicopter and make a really poor cut/editing job and have the next frame with him safely on the ground, in the most obvious way possible.
The movie score is rather poor. All over the place, no timing.
The ending is probably the worse I have seen in quite some time. Very much like they ran out of ideas. Scrap that, you can't run out of something if you never had it in the first place. Must have ran out of budget.
This is a really amateur job. I give it a 2 for using London as a location, which is a nice change, for Gilsig being actually decent in a key support role and for the few CGI shots that were decent (those of the water closing in on London and the gates).
Do yourself a favor and check out Day After Tomorrow or just about any disaster movie before this one. This includes older classics like The Towering Inferno.
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user\nOh but this is woeful. One good actor after another turns in lamentable dialogue in half hearted fashion under what must have been incredibly pedestrian direction to consider it acceptable. I like Robert Carlyle and Joanne Whalley is one of my favourite actresses, Tom Courtney can act well when pushed and David Suchet is a professional of the highest integrity but they all wallowed around like fish in a barrel of watery gin. I swear Courtney was inebriated, on painkillers or both.
Was there a good performance in the whole thing? Well yes, David Hood as the junior underground engineer whose mate got washed away looked like he was taking the thing seriously and credit to him for that, it can't be easy when \"all around are losing theirs\" so to speak, or maybe his scenes came under the direction of the assistant director ( if there was one) I just don't know what these people were doing in a film that was this poor ( other than paying the bills, obviously) I can't begin to say how disappointed I am in them. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!
Any positives other than David Hood the third... yes The aerial shots of London largely submerged were very well done and the effects artists responsible deserved better than to have their fine work punctuated by such a shallow story,if you'll forgive the expression, as those few people that do see them will do so on a far smaller screen than would be to best advantage.
What's going on here? why are British film makers trying to imitate such characterless, spectacle driven, tabloid level genres as the disaster movie and then doing it even worse than the Americans. Gritty realism, character integrity, the capture of real emotion in a way that makes you feel it and care... The Family Way, Spring and Port Wine, Get Carter, The long Good Friday, Trainspotting....Don't get me wrong I like a bit of escapist hokum. The real \"Italian Job\" , The Adventures of Tom Jones; but oh that it should come to this, there was more realistic drama in Carry On Camping.
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user\nOn the face of it this film looked like it might be really good - it isn't.
The cast is pretty good, but most of them seemed embarrassed by the whole thing. The real disaster in this film is not the flood, but the script. It attempts to include every cliché in the book, all done incredibly poorly. The ending is very abrupt, but this is a blessing in disguise. Congragulations if you make it that far.
All three main male actors (Carlyle, Courtney and Suchet) would surely agree that this is the low point in their careers. I hope they got paid a lot of cash, because none of their reputations come out in tact.
The special effects are quite good, but the same thing was done to much better effect in The Day After Tomorrow.
In short, a pointless exercise. Don't waste your time.
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user\nThe production values for this film make it fall short of Hollywood blockbuster status, and the script makes it fall short of cult status. What is left is a tired formulaic attempt at the disaster movie genre that will disappear with the ebb tide.
A decent cast, are either miss cast, or cannot be bothered.The beautiful Joanne Whalley is unable to bring any gravitas to the role of Police Commissioner Nash who wears the most irritating matching waist clincher above her skirt.
Jessalyn Gilseg plays the heavyweight part of Director of the Thames Barrier with all the conviction of a fairground candy floss. Her Canadian nationality and accent were presumably drafted in to appeal to a transatlantic audience. It, and she, fails.Her initial appearance in a tight fitting pink jogging suit as she arrives at work is risible.
The part of the \"Siren old git who was right\" is played by Tom Courtenay as though he is acting in his sleep, and the various plot twists that are designed to energise his son, played by Robert Carlyle, struggle to get any response from him.
Nigel Planer looks determined to commit ritual hari kari for his failings as Met Office Director, or for his acting, or both, and only David Suchet emerges with some credit for his role as Deputy PM.
There was enough in the story, and the cast and the effects to have produced a decent effort. Alas that did not happen.
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user\nYou would have thought, given how much this overblown pile of rubbish must have cost, that the budget could have stretched to a decent scriptwriter. Instead, they seemed to have opted for a bog standard Hollywood 'Paint by Numbers' disaster movie plot and dialog. The only cliché they seem to have missed was the Cute Kid. But every other one is there. There's the sullen hero, flung together by fate with both his ex wife and estranged father. There's the doting Dad and the rebellious teenager.There's the 'Professor that everyone thought was wrong until it turned out he wasn't'(Played appallingly by the normally excellent Tom Courtney seemingly in the grip of some powerful drugs), plus the comic duo wandering about in the deserted underground railway.
I sat down to watch this full of anticipation. The cast is, as noted, amazing. Yet within minutes it became clear how bad this was going to be. Stuff this useless should come with a warning. Something along the lines of;
'This film may have been made in Britain but was aimed at the American market. It therefore contains tired clichés, stock characters, stilted dialogue and a plot so lame brained and simplistic that even George W Bush could understand it.'
Avoid.
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user\n'Flood' is a prime example of how throwing good actors and cgi at a film will do little to compensate for a rubbish script. The basic premise is fine: what if a freak storm threatened to send the sea straight over the Thames flood barriers and engulf London so fast that most of the inhabitants would probably never get out in time? It's basically the New York segment of 'The Day After Tomorrow', but that shouldn't make it any less of a film. However, the script just isn't there. It's merely functional, flat, and lacking in depth. Great British talents like Robert Carlysle and David Suchet to name but two do their level best with what they've got, but their characters are two-dimensional cyphers, like something out of an old Marvel comic. and it'd be frankly easier to turn back the tide. Not that every actor gets let off the hook - Tom Courtenay seemed capable of only one emotion throughout the film, but then he wasn't given much of a challenge.
I applaud any opportunity to see some non-Hollywood disaster flicks for a change, and I don't expect zillions of dollars spent on rendering ultra- realistic graphics. However there's no excuse for shonky writing - especially from a country that has produced some of the best science- fiction ever made on next to no budget at all. This is the kind of half- hearted B-grade fluff the Sci-Fi channel produces, and that's hardly a target to aim for. If like me you are such a fan of disaster films you're still tempted, do yourself a favour and watch it with some friends. Better still; don't bother.
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user\nThis awful effort just goes to show what happens when you not only use computers to generate the effects, but also let them devise the plot and write the script. Someone somewhere has obviously come up with a new bit of software that asks a few questions then churns out four hours of loosely connected clichés, lousy dialogue and a collection of stock characters that you end up wishing had all drowned in the first five minutes.
Tom Courtney took the prize for worst performance. Saying that he was wooden would be an insult to trees. It's hard to fault Robert Carlyle in almost anything he does, but the odds were stacked against even him in this one, especially since he was for some unaccountable reason required to adopt a gor' blimey London accent.
A complete washout.
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user\nTopical? Certainly. Entertainment? Probably - but only on removal of any shred of the viewer's common sense. Reality? Only in so much that it was made on this planet.
How thousands of people were supposed to have died as a result of a 5-metre wall of water in a city liberally littered with buildings in excess of 25 metres high is quite beyond me. Carlyle's line to the effect of \"How could anyone survive that?\" when the shot shows forests of buildings with several floors above the water is completely laughable. Further, if someone commits themselves to an area (under water) where one cylinder of air is not enough (i.e. they are going to die), why not use the simple expedient of taking more than one cylinder? Clearly, the writer thinks that people in stressful situations cannot count beyond one (one cylinder, one floor).
Rather than watching this tripe, you would be more informed and entertained by throwing the DVD away and reading the pricing information on the cellophane outer wrapper.
Pitiful, truly pitiful, and a terrible waste of the on-screen talent.
As for the sexist propaganda suggesting that only women can see through the problems to illuminate the solutions to be effected by the expendable men: yet more PC 'tosh'. Small wonder that First Blood, Delta Force, Navy Seals and other such movies of little or no merit will always have a following while this blatantly politically-motivated bilge is peddled.
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user\nI really do not joke when i can honestly submit that this film is not suitable for Sunday night viewing on ITV4.
The underground scenes are just awful when London is supposedly under 30ft of water, Robert Carlyles character is drab. The Police commissioners outfit reminds me of something Kate Moss threw up and Nigel Planer looks very VERY old, in fact, I am worried that he may have had suffered a stroke whilst filming.
The father of Robert Carlyle who was 'right all along' has obviously been necking too many Ketamin and whilst he has a major part in this awkward journey, he deserved to be killed off way WAY before he was caught pretending to be Kate Winslett (Titanic) whilst dangling over the Thames Barrier.
I'm sorry Film lovers but avoid at all costs.
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user\nMiscast, badly directed and atrociously written, this is watchable if you have an hour or two to kill or are suffering from insomnia, but only just. Robert Carlyle fully realises his potential as an actor of supreme mediocrity with only one expression to his repertoire (that of a chronically constipated football hooligan nursing a crippling inferiority complex), which he manages at times to alter slightly by flaring his nostrils and baring a row of skewed yellow teeth (this to indicate anger, tenderness, grief, surprise, horror, hilarity, compassion, etc.) In his role as \"the best marine engineer in the UK\" and son of a university professor he is about as convincing as my neighbour's cat. Tom Courtenay, equally miscast, slurring and mistiming every line, appears permanently soused to the eyeballs, and would seem no more able to tell a flood from a puddle of his own urine if he were standing in it. All in all, another silly attempt on the part of the British to imitate Hollywood pulp at its most rubbishy. The dialogue is a series of badly-delivered clichés; the action is disjointed; the plot is pointless and amputated; and the characters, if you can call them that, do not even make it into the basic two-dimensional sphere of their American counterparts.
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user\nI don't normally write reviews, but for this film I had to. I'm shocked at the acting talent in this move going to waste... the script was appalling... the editing awful... and the plot very thin. You spend the first half of the movie wondering who is talking to who and what on earth they are doing. The latter half of the movie slows down slightly, but has no depth or feeling. The only saving grace is the nice, but still limited cgi, and the location being London. I gave 3 stars for that, and the fact the actors still tried to do a good job with the drivel they were given. If you fancy losing a couple of hours of your life with mediocre popcorn disaster movie entertainment, by all means, this is the movie for you. But I would recommend doing something else with your time instead, like watching the real archive footage online! :) http://www.weatherpaparazzi.com/flooding.asp
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user\nI usually like these dumb/no brain activity movies, but this was just too stupid. There were way too many clichés and the plot didn't really make much sense. There were a lot of loose ends and the ending was extremely poor and abrupt. We didn't even get too see if the big master plan worked. We only got too see the main character sob over his dead farther, the professor (that died because of stupidity (see below)).
One scene annoyed me particularly. Why did the professor only have about 5 minutes of oxygen in his container when he went to manually override the dam? And if they only had oxygen containers containing 5 minutes worth of oxygen, why didn't he bring two or three of them? Then he would have survived that was bloody stupid. The movie is pretty full of such stupid things. I can not recommend it at all.
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