That was an excellent one.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Describing what could happen in the future, the film combines formulaic character subplots with terrific visuals in the second half to convey a fictional but realistic story of people caught up in their own private dramas before and during a devastating earthquake.There are a couple of problems here. The first relates to the subplots; there are too many, resulting in an unnecessarily long run-time of about three hours. The assassination subplot seemed a bit hokey. At least 30 minutes probably could have been cut out without affecting the quality of the overall story. Because of so many speaking parts, I lost track of how some characters connected to other characters.Also, the sound quality in the copy I watched was not very good. At times I could not understand the dialogue; it seemed muffled.But of course viewers aren't really watching the film for the melodrama. They're watching for the disaster that's about to befall the characters. And the visuals during and after the earthquake are spectacular, every bit as good as in the 1974 film "Earthquake", if not better. Attention to detail is terrific. A lot of time and effort went into the visuals of this film, and it shows.Casting of main parts is fine; the cast of extras is enormous. Overall acting is average, though I thought Joanna Kerns, as the lead character, gave an especially credible performance. Production design was far higher here than we would expect for a TV movie.And I think it is indeed the "TV movie" label that brings down the cumulative rating for this film. Actually, "The Big One" is closer to a blockbuster theatrical release than it is to the stereotyped image of made-for-TV movie that viewers have come to expect. Unnecessarily lengthy subplots notwithstanding, if the viewer can watch the film for what it is, sans TV label, the viewer will enjoy it all the more.

First off let me say that this one has more ups than downs, and it's better than you're average disaster movie,, first the ups,, the fact that big money plays a part in this film,, you have real estate moguls,, the mayor,, all wanting to hush up the story of "The Big One" for political interests, except for the governor. i liked the ending,, that's always a plus. great acting for the most part,, ed begley jr.. dan lauria, jo anna kerns,, all great actors, and actresses, some of the downs are it takes to long to get going,, to much character development,, and why the heck was there this lame assassination plot,, that had absolutely nothing to do with the story,, and after the big one hits,, the assassination continues,, that took balls, but i kinda liked that,, the plot was very good i thought, the peoples reaction to the big one, and how the media perceives things and "can" twist things is very real,, this movie took some raw facts and shown us that, most disaster movies don't really do that,, you had a great ensemble cast that deserves kudos,,

This film wasn't too bad for a TV movie; but nonetheless, it isn't too good either.The film is too long in the first place. The kind of simple plot lines employed here could have been told in a two hour time-frame, they didn't need to be dragged out over the three hours the film is. These sub-plots indeed are pretty boring and lacklustre - typical TV movie stuff; but this time an earthquake shakes things up some.Worse still, the main plot is almost inexcusable. The star, Joanna Kerns, is a seismologist and she thinks she has figured out a methodology to predict earthquakes. Using this method, she decides an Earthquake is going to hit LA pretty soon. Of course no one believes, or wants to believe her, because there's too much red tape involved in following up such a warning - like evacuating the city for nothing if it ends up being a false alarm. So she becomes the strong willed and much maligned protagonist, fighting against the system in order to save lives.This plot line was ripped straight out of 1974's Earthquake (with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner), so everyone knows how the film is going to end; they've seen it before! And everyone knows that those bureaucratic skeptics in the film are wrong. Heck, the film's title is a dead giveaway that there will be a quake, and that everybody should have listened to the seismologist! This is why the film makers didn't have to drag out the scenes dealing with this for such a long time before wowing us with the actual quake.Other than that, the quake scenes were surprisingly good for a TV movie. There was enough bang and blast to keep anyone amused, and the special effects carried it off quite well. The problem is that not many people (except extras) die in the end, and this is a bit disappointing, because after such a simplistically boring plot line being dragged out for such a long time, one yearns for a bit of a jolt at the end. This doesn't not come, however.'The Big One' is not too terrible a movie, but you may need to engage your trusty fast-forward button....

Forget for a second that the acting and the dialogue are not exactly first-rate; this isn't Shakespeare or Spielberg. This 1990 made-for-TV film does focus on an all-too-plausible disaster for those of us, like myself, who live in Southern California--a cataclysmic earthquake tearing the region apart.Irritating subplots aside (Robert Ginty's greedy developer engaging in what I'd call "Quakegate"; Joe Spano's emergency management chief torn between Ginty and Kerns; Richard Masur's Geraldo-like tabloid TV reporter), THE BIG ONE is just too effective in its depiction of destruction on a scale not seen in a long time. Kerns' performance as seismologist Claire Winslow is clearly modeled off of CalTech scientists Lucy Jones and Kate Hutton. The film's science is also pretty straight-on, especially when one realizes that the quakes that have shook up Southern California since the 1971 Sylmar event have not occurred along the dreaded San Andreas Fault but on faults of which little or nothing is known about.So whatever plot pratfalls it has, THE BIG ONE still works as an ultimate science fiction/disaster movie, at least from the science angle.