SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

ShangLuda Admirable film.

jabrbi When you're halfway through a disaster movie and you find yourself rooting for the disaster, then you know that something's gone wrong. As usual for these types of movies I found myself hoping that all the lead characters would just die, the sooner the better. The only person I liked was the cranky artist who gets stuck in a lift. Other than that it's just a bunch of walking clichés that should have been shot at the earliest opportunity.Not only are the characters the usual clichés - whiny teenagers who fall apart at the first sign of trouble, the evil corporation bosses who prize money over safety, the old, exhausted boss due to retire who knows everything and the bureaucratic idiot replacement, the pilot hero who can keep flying for 150 hours straight, the dogged reporter, the bonkers hacker - but the plot holes are big enough to sink Chicago in. And, of course, nobody does anything logical.A huge plot point is that the power goes out in Chicago, and then there's a huge effort to bring the power back online, and then the 'hacker' who took the power out tries to bring the power back online, again. However, he seems to have no ability to see that the power is already on? Why? Don't bother looking for an explanation, there isn't one. So the power goes out, then it's on briefly, and then it's out again - because power plus power equals zero. So there's no power, except when a protagonist HAS to make a vital phone call, or when a siren HAS to go off on top of a building, or a computer connection has to be made, ...The movie looks like it had a decent enough budget, or there's warehouse in America with over a hundred hours of disaster footage. Sadly, the budget wasn't spent on a decent script, or better actors. A lot of lines felt as though they were place markers until a better line was created. Sadly, the better lines never turned up. Were the actors any good? Can't tell as there was no need for anyone to act, they just had to deliver awful lines with wooden faces.Why can't people make a disaster films and concentrate on a single storyline? Instead, you have dozens of sub-plots, side-plots, wasted-plots, irrelevant-plots, and go-nowhere-plots that just fill in the time between the opening and closing credits. This film is like an elongated episode in a naff soap opera. If you find that you can keep up with who all the characters are and what their issues are, then you've watched too much daytime soaps and need to get a life.As a cure for insomnia this is an excellent movie. That's about the only useful thing this film is good for.

disdressed12 Category 6:day of destruction is a very well done"made for TV movie".i won't go too much into the plot,but basically,the climate suddenly changes in the extreme,creating all kinds of weather related disasters,on top of a man made disaster, all occurring at basically the same time in parts of the U.S and Canada.the movie is quite exciting to watch at times,but also has some good dramatic scenes and can be quite engaging.the acting is very good and the specials effects are quite well done ,given the scope of the movie and the budget the filmmakers had.there are a few weak spots in the movie,but very few and the story more than compensates.the plot itself is in the range of being ludicrous and the science behind it all is likely flawed,but who cares.it's no more ridiculous than some of the pap the big Hollywood studios churn out.if you view this movie for what it is, in the proper context,you will enjoy it.it is thrilling and suspenseful and dramatic when need be.and that's more than enough in this case.By the way, this production was at least partly made by Hallmark Entertainment.

Robert W. Category 6 isn't going to blow you away (no pun intended,) It's not up to big budget Hollywood standards by ANY means. In some ways it is your typical made for TV disaster movie which I am sure had an astronomical budget for TV. All said and done the special effects were almost impressive save for a few horribly done CGI moments, and the acting overall wasn't bad. The film is chock full of familiar TV faces and at a running time of nearly three hours they do definitely give you an in depth look at the characters that saves it from being overly boring. On top of that it manages to be a little different by not only providing you with the story of a disaster about to strike Chicago but also a sub plot about an act of terrorism against Chicago's power stations that ultimately could lead to an even worse disaster. I've absolutely seen worse than this and I think people are being harsh. You have to take it for what it is which is a B-Movie, made for Television.Thomas Gibson (Greg from Dharma and Greg) plays Mitch Benson, the head of a small power company desperately trying to keep emergency services and customers online in the wake of a powerful storm moving towards them. Gibson is a little bland and shows emotion in a rather mechanical way but overall he does a decent job. He's basically Greg...and I think that's about the range of his acting ability but he holds his own. Nancy McKeon (Jo from Facts Of Life) plays one of the better roles as reporter Amy Harkin. McKeon is still a TV actress but she does a pretty good job at showing intensity and emotion and being a very strong female character and she's very good at being the reporter. Chandra West is Rebecca Kerns, the Public Relations person for Lexer, the enormous power company trying to push all the rules in order to take control of the country's power supply and be the sole provider. West is mostly there for looks, eye candy, and she doesn't have many roles and because of her character's role as the "home wrecker" she comes across as needy and whiny and you don't really care much for her. Nancy Anne Sakovich plays Jane Benson (wife to Gibson's character.) Her role is quite emotional and she does well although she plays depressed through the entire film. Her and Gibson have good chemistry and you do root for her. Ari Cohen is also good as Dan London, the systems analyst for Lexer who discovers Lexer's plan to cut costs and make millions at the sake of safety and decides to blow the whistle on the operation. Cohen really is not a good guy in this film but he plays the role sympathetically. The real talent and veterans of the film are Randy Quaid as Tornado Tommy, Dianne Wiest, and the terrific Brian Dennehy. Quaid is always good, even when he's in a bad role. He's watchable and funny and charismatic and a good character actor. Wiest has a smaller role but still quite good. She's forceful and strong and she commands a certain presence on screen. She's also a three time Oscar Nominee!! She's worth watching for in this film. Dennehy who I really enjoy is a strong macho kind of guy. He's rough around the edges but has a soft spot and that's exactly how he plays in this film. The guy is a veteran and an expert and he's great to watch. Unfortunately his role is not all that big either but he still raises the bar in this cast.This film would never walk away with any huge acclaim or awards but it's very watchable to someone who knows what they are going into. A lot of people enjoy B-Movies or made-for-TV specials and this one is actually pretty good. Some intense disaster scenes, a decent story, good direction by long time TV director Dick Lowry, and a not entirely unfortunate cast. Some of the acting is average...some is downright awful but the story holds it all together and you do care about some of the characters and even laughing at the sheer campiness of certain scenes is still fun. On top of being campy there is actually some very impressive disaster scenes!! Don't go into this expecting some huge bid budget magical disaster film...it's just fun, silly at times, but not entirely a waste. It's worth checking out if nothing else. 7/10

Philby-3 This one was truly awful. Watching with fascinated horror, I kept on asking "why have they done this?" That is, taken all the scenarios out of "The Day after Tomorrow", "The Perfect Storm" and "Twister" and remixing them in a three-hour miniseries, directed by long-time junk TV director Dick Lowry, with every disaster movie cliché known to man and not an ounce of real suspense. Many of the cast were unknown Canadians and location filming was done in Canada, Winnepeg doubling for Chicago, so no doubt tax breaks had something to do with it. Although some ambitious special effects were attempted, the execution is so poor no decent spectacle is achieved. The actors may be a competent lot; the script is so bad no-one had a chance to show it, except perhaps for Randy Quaid as Tommy the Tornado chaser, who went right over the top and was quite amusing.Believe it or not, the producers have since made another one of these Canadian disaster turkeys called "Category 7 – the End of the World" which was very tastefully shown on CBS in the US a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina. How could the network of Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite do such a thing? In prime time? PT Barnum "nobody ever went broke underestimating public taste" is proved right once more.