Amy Adler Thomas (Tom Skerritt) is the fire chief for NYC but, he is about to submit his resignation. He has bones to pick with the city's mayor (Charles S. Dutton) and rather than work things out, Thomas is set to quit. The mayor has a beautiful, intelligent daughter who serves as a topnotch public defender but who is also being courted by a top law firm. Her latest case involves a man accused of murdering his wife, but the would-be killer proclaims his innocence. Can she get him acquitted and then land the more lucrative job? Also in the city is a lady named Dori (Sharon Lawrence) who suffers with acute guilt over an automobile accident that left her young son with a limp. Her husband (Mitchell Ryan) is dismayed that she still has not gone back to work or that she will not renew their mutual hobby, mountain climbing. Meanwhile, aspiring ballet dancer, Diane (Jennifer Garner) still has to ask her parents for money to make ends meet, something no family member likes, including Diane. Crossing paths with these folks are a Russian immigrant cab driver, the mayor's caring but aging mother, a poor teenager, and a businesswoman with eyes for Dori's husband. Suddenly, a deadly earthquake strikes, in NYC for goodness sake. Some folks are trapped in the subway, some on the street, and some in the upper levels of buildings. Who will survive? Does anyone care? This film is a very poor affair, suffering from implausability and stupidity, too. It's as though someone said, let's have an earthquake strike Manhattan because having people trapped in a subway system would be cool. No matter if the chance of an earthquake hitting NYC is slim to none, let's do it. Add on a fire chief who orders men into dangerous and avoidable situations, a mayor who can take time for a chat during a disaster, and a rock climbing mama who is the only one able to rescue her son and you have a film that goes way beyond credulity. The lame acting by nearly all thespians (Sharon Lawrence starts off well but loses her believability, too) does not help matters, either. The special effects are uneven, sometimes being quite good, and at other times, totally laughable. Costumes and production values are average at best, too. If you have a yen for disaster flicks, then you might take an interest in watching this one. For, in truth, it is a double dose of dire, once as an earthquake flick, and once as an extremely poor-quality film.

Bob Stout I'd avoided this movie for years. Unlike the writers, I understand the geology under NYC, so I was expecting it to be every bit as bad as "Volcano", based on a similarly silly premise. Finally, last night I needed some mindless entertainment to help me get to sleep so I tuned in.Yes, the premise is just as silly as it sounds. However, the writers, while technically clueless, did craft one of the best disaster flick scripts I've ever seen. The acting is uniformly excellent, and the direction, after the typically slow disaster flick setup, was taut and effective. The special effects were quite decent for TV - certainly better than most SciFi channel made-for-TV films. Unlike "Volcano", the characters are sympathetic and believable. After the viewer has swallowed the basic premise, everything else goes down well. Altogether a very involving film, which is, after all, the goal of all disaster flicks.Given a chance, I will watch it again (I missed the first 10 minutes or so). Heartily recommended for disaster flick fans, conditionally recommended for everyone else.

xredgarnetx I watched about half of 1999's AFTERSHOCK, and what I saw was a standard TV production about the impact of an earthquake on New York City. I had no problem with the so-so special effects nor the overly large AIRPORT-type cast, other than Sharon Lawrence as a gin-guzzling middle-aged mom. It's easy enough to imagine just how much worse the impact of a quake would have on Manhattan than was portrayed in this movie, including a lot more looters and shootings, with rats and corpses and disease and devastation everywhere -- like post-Katrina New Orleans. I also understand this lengthy movie does not follow the novel on which it is based. Ah well ... A young Jennifer Garner is extremely appealing as a wannabe ballerina. At first, I thought I was looking at Natalie Portman -- Garner was that good-looking in her 20s. Familiar TV faces Tom Skerritt and Charles Dutton ham it up big time as the city's feuding fire chief and mayor, respectively. A strangely bewigged Cicely Tyson plays Dutton's wiser than Moses and older than Methuselah mom.

Ironman-7 I watched this on TV, and all I can say is that it was an awesome movie, with incredible special effects and more than the other stories of destruction, a believable plot line. I saw that movie is available on video tape, but I'd personally wait for a DVD. I know it probably will never get made in that format, but it would be one that i'd buy!!