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www.reel.com - : I saw The Towering Inferno for the first time in my little hometown cinema when I was 11 years old. At the time, I thought it was the greatest disaster movie ever. Thirty-one years after I first watched it, I have not changed my mind. It's still GREAT. It's still—I'll say it again—THE greatest disaster movie ever made. Yes, of course, there's 1972's The Poseidon Adventure; some would claim it's the superior film. Taste is taste, but where's the valid argument behind that kind of thinking? In Poseidon, you can either go down with the ship or jump off and drown in the ocean. Unless you're lucky enough to get on a lifeboat, you're sunk. End of story. It's a simple sink-or-swim equation that lacks not only the profusion of rescue and heroics scenarios found in Towering Inferno, but also its levels of irony. We're not saying irony is the end all be all, but Hollywood loves it, disaster movies depend on it, and T.I. has it to burn. more...
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www.mediacircus.net - : Slow pacing, lack of any truly emotionally-charged scenes, and bad acting ruin this Irwin Allen disaster epic. An electrical fire starts on the 81st floor of the world's tallest office building as a result of some corners being cut during its construction. By the time everyone has had a chance to point fingers at one another (which is a very long time, given the pacing), the fire has consumed the entire building, trapping an inaugural party on the top floor (and the audience has fallen asleep). Caught in this disaster of Dante-esque proportions are the building's architect (salad-dressing man Paul Newman), the building's owner, the no-good-son-in-law of the building owner who put in wiring not up to specs (Richard Chamberlain at his cheesiest), a security guard (the Juice!), a sweet-talking con-man with a heart of gold (Fred Astaire), and a couple of annoying kids. more...
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Critic Reviews
