Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Various interconnected people struggle to survive when an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude hits Los Angeles, California.
Earthquake (1974) is a quintessential 1970s disaster spectacle, leaning heavily on the ensemble cast formula popularized by films like Airport and The Poseidon Adventure. The plot is thin and episodic, stringing together melodramatic subplots — the troubled architect, the alcoholic cop, the daredevil motorcyclist — without much depth or coherence. Acting is uneven; Charlton Heston is stoic but wooden, and most supporting characters are thinly written archetypes. Cinematography is a genuine highlight for its era, with impressive practical destruction sequences and ambitious large-scale set pieces that hold up reasonably well. The film earns some Novelty points for its theatrical Sensurround sound gimmick and its brazen commitment to spectacle, though the disaster-movie formula was already well-worn by 1974. The ending is bleak and abrupt — the dam collapse floods the tunnels — but it feels somewhat arbitrary rather than dramatically earned, leaving the emotional payoff flat.