Movie Review: 10.0 Earthquake (2014)

The movie stars Henry Ian Cusick, Chasty Ballesteros, Cameron Richardson, Jeffrey Jones and Kristen Dalton.

My wife and I wanted to watch a movie together last night but had a difficult time finding anything that looked decent. As a result of this, we ended up ultimately picking this movie because it was one of the few that didn't have a 1-star rating on Netflix.

When we started watching this movie, I figured it would turn out to be a low-budget rip off of the movie "San Andreas." As it turns out, I was right, there were a lot of similarities between the two movies. However, the movie also turned out to be better than I thought it would be.

Yes, the film was definitely low budget and, as a result, some of the special effects were pretty weak. There were also quite a few scenes in it that were somewhat campy and maybe even a bit over dramatic. But, the film also had a few good things going for it as well.

In particular, I found I loved Jeffrey Jones' character, Gladstone. He was definitely eccentric. But, as the movie progressed, it became more and more apparent he was also a genius and, ultimately, he is the one who ends up saving the day. When you throw in the fun little quirks, such as his Red Bull addiction and the fact he somehow lives in a mansion with a beautiful, much younger wife, there are times when he really is the one who makes the movie.

The overall plot, while familiar (thanks, again to San Andreas) was also unique enough to remain entertaining, especially since the engineer, Jack (Thomas) not only has to risk his life to rescue his family, he has to first locate his daughter (Ballesteros) because her mom (Dalton) apparently had no problem with her teenage daughter going camping with one other girl and a bunch of boys. Then, on top of it, he has to find a way to stop his greedy boss from making things even worse. It wasn't enough to make this film the best I've ever seen, but at least I wasn't falling asleep while watching it.

It is low budget and a bit weak on the special effects side of things. But, if you can't find anything else to watch, there are definitely worse choices.

My Grade: B