Earthquake Inferno: When the World Ends
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Earthquake Inferno: When the World Ends |
| Original title | Aftershock: Earthquake in New York |
| Country of production | United States , Germany |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1999 |
| length | 170 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mikael Salomon |
| script |
Chuck Scarborough (book), Paul Eric Myers , David Stevens , Loren Boothby |
| music | Irwin fish |
| camera |
David R. Hardberger , Jon Joffin |
| cut | Christopher Rouse |
| occupation | |
| |
Earthquake Inferno: When the World Ends , aka New York Doomsday and Aftershock , is a 1999 four-hour disaster film that will be broadcast in the US as a two-part TV series on CBS on November 14th and 16th First broadcast in 1999. The film was released on VHS in 2000 and on DVD in 2001. The story is based on the 1991 book Aftershock by New York TV news anchor Chuck Scarborough and shows what could happen if an earthquake hits New York City . It tells the stories of five groups of people how they deal with the aftermath of an earthquake.
The film was nominated for an Emmy for special effects and directed by Mikael Salomon , who has already been nominated twice for an Oscar (as cameraman for Abyss and Backdraft ). Although film critics praised the successful special effects, the film was mainly criticized because of the implausible scenario and the predictable and unrealistic plot.
action
While Dori Thorell ( Sharon Lawrence ) and her 9 year old son Danny are eating breakfast, Sam calls Thorell during his business trip. Ballerina Diane Agostini ( Jennifer Garner ) is on the phone with her father when a blender suddenly falls from the counter. Regardless, she hangs up and rushes to a ballet rehearsal at the New York City Ballet . Attorney Evie Lincoln ( Lisa Nicole Carson ) discusses his case with her client Joshua Bingham ( JR Bourne ).
That evening, minor tremors caused a gas leak in Diane's apartment complex. Although the electricity in the building is still intact, the fire chief Thomas Ahearn ( Tom Skerritt ) sends his team into the complex. The building explodes, killing several men. At a party at the Gracie Mansion , the official residence of the New York City Mayor, Evie's grandmother Emily Lincoln ( Cicely Tyson ) complains about her late arrival at the ceremony. Her father, Mayor Bruce Lincoln ( Charles S. Dutton ), is trying hard to get her to interview a major law firm.
The next day, Ahearn takes his daughter Christine to high school. She complains about her father's dismissal in “revenge” on budget problems at his employer. In the courtroom, Joshua is acquitted of his charges of murdering his dependent wife. Meanwhile, Diane meets with her father, as she hopes he will help her financially. As she leaves lunch, she sits down in the taxi belonging to Russian immigrant Nikolai Karvoski ( Fred Weller ). An earthquake shook the city, causing several buildings to collapse. Nikolai's taxi is smashed by falling rubble and Nikolai has to flee down the street with Diane. During the escape, a gas pipe explodes and the sidewalk is pushed up. Diane saves Nikolai's life after falling and catching fire. The train that Evie and Joshua are on derails in the subway tunnel after the tunnel collapsed. When the earthquake stops, Diane, accompanied by Nikolai, makes her way back to the restaurant, where she finds her father fatally injured. He dies after he tells her with his last words that he is proud of his daughter. In the subway, Joshua wants to leave the seriously injured driver behind and leave the tunnel with the survivors. But before he can persuade Evie and the others to leave the train, someone calls out for help.
Captain Ahearn returns to his fire station, which he finds partially collapsed. Since the city's central guidance system has collapsed, he contacts Jillian Parnell ( Erika Eleniak ), a reporter at WCBS-TV who is currently flying over the city in a helicopter to keep up with the latest information. Both the New York City Police Department headquarters and New York City Hall have collapsed, and Ahearn asks Jillian to pick him up. When the injured Emily wakes up lying on the floor in the church, she sees a teenager ( Ray J ) whom she got a job in the past and who is searching her for her wallet. When the boy realizes that Emily is still alive, he tries to find a way out of the church. Contrary to their protests, Nikolai stays with Diane when she tries to find her mother, but they eventually part ways. Ahearn sees that his daughter's school has collapsed too, but he continues on to Central Park , where temporary storage is being set up in the meantime. He finds the mayor and the two agree to ignore Ahearn's resignation and put their differences aside in order to help the townspeople. Meanwhile, a major leak in the sewer system is causing sewage to flood the metro system.
Ahearn makes his way to his daughter's school after learning that there are survivors. Christine is one of the survivors, but dies in an aftershock before she can be rescued. At church, Emily learns that the boy who tried to steal from her never got a real name, only has a street name. They ask him to take the name of their son, Clayton, who died as a baby. Shortly afterwards, the boy manages to escape through a hole in the ceiling of the church and get help. Dori arrives at Danny's school, where she learns that he is stuck on the top floor and that all rescue attempts so far have been unsuccessful. Sam also arrives at the school when Dori is trying to climb the building with the help of a cable to save her son. Diane catches looters in her mother's apartment, but Nikolai comes by, scares away the robbers and finds a message from Diane's mother that she has gone to a friend's house. The mayor arrives at the hospital and learns that his mother was killed in the earthquake. He thanks Clayton for trying to save his mother, and asks Ahearn to help the boy who tried to save her and is now discouraged.
On the subway, Joshua, Evie, and another survivor, Allen (Roger R. Cross), separate from the others and ultimately find a ladder to freedom. Joshua climbs first, followed by Evie. But when Allen also climbs up, Joshua breaks the ladder. He confirms Evie's growing suspicion that he did murder his wife and attacks her. When he hears someone running up, Joshua tries to escape with the help of another ladder. However, an aftershock shakes the city again and the ladder breaks, resulting in Joshua's death. Evie leads the arrived helpers in the direction of the other survivors waiting to be rescued. Dori successfully climbs the school building of her son, where he has to jump into his mother's arms from the building. Suddenly the cable travels, but the two land safely on an inflatable life mat, where they are reunited with Sam.
At the end of the film, New York is shown a year after the quake, where reconstruction work is still in progress. Mayor Lincoln and Ahearn have since become friends; Dori and Sam are shown teaching Danny to climb; and Diane is a successful ballerina and married to Nikolai.
criticism
The lexicon of international films found the two-part series to be an “elaborate but conventional television production” .
Web links
- Earthquake Inferno: When the world comes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Earthquake Inferno: When the world ends. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 8, 2014 .