random_sample-549-85033 Really thought provoking and pretty depressing as well. This is a movie that all world leaders should be forced to watch at least once per year. A bit long but riveting none the less, well directed and well acted. The scenario was a pleasant change as the bulk of the movie is set in Austrailia as opposed to the US where I live. It is of course an Austrailian film. It was sobering to see the city of San Francisco post apocalypse as well as Alaska where you can always go to drop out and escape your demons. The war itself was over and done with at the very beginning of the movie, leaving the entire 3ish hours to deal with the aftermath. There are human diversions to break up the overwhelming seriousness of the southern hemisphere's impending demise from the radiation cloud making it's way south from the utterly obliterated north. The final solution kits that were being handed out by public health services containing poison, (a syringe for kids and pets and a pill for the grownups) designed to offer a quick death as opposed to suffering through the radiation sickness to meet the same inevitable end pose a moral question. Well worth a look.

a-j-crofts When I was a kid (about 10) my late Father used to ask me to get "On the Beach" regularly (well, maybe 3 times a year) when I cycled to the Warwick (UK) library to get my own kids books. Never understood his fascination with it. When I moved to Finland, 40 years later, one of my "hobbies" is ferreting through the local 'Salvation Army' shop, and the book was unbelievably there, paperback, in English. HUH??. €0.10!!! When I read it, and wept buckets, I understood why. I ordered both the 1959 and the 2000 version DVD's from Amazon. 2000 version vastly superior. (As an aside, delete if irrelevant - My Father also had a fascination with the song, "Waltzing Matilda". Never understood why, till I read the lyrics. Then I did. He served in the Somme, you see. This week is kinda appropriate.)

manxman80 Both the original book, the first movie and this one ignore (probably for dramatic effect) the real effects of fallout and the movement of weather from northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere.In the real world fallout decays using a rule of 7/10. If you had a lethal radiation dose of 1000 rads one hour after detonation then 7 hours later the dose is down to 100 rads. 49 hours later down to 10 rads etc. It seems that a decreasing dose of 5-10 rads per day is survivable..not pleasant and with horrific genetic problems etc..but people would live. Also the air itself isn't radioactive its the dust carried in it. In the case of the Alaska mission by the sub, 2 years after the event the radiation would have been minimal. Also there isn't that much mixing between northern and southern weather systems. That much radiation would never reach Australia in the first place.Enough comments here on wooden acting...there should be a prize given for the worst American accent. The showing of 2 year old bodies was also strictly for daytime TV viewers..they assuredly don't look like the corpse of the unfortunate girl in the TV station with the famous solar powered laptop...The submarine used was apparently square in shape in some scenes..entirely studio based with stock photography used for outside views..would have been nice if the same class of sub had been used in all the shots. I counted at least 3 different vessels used.Some scenes worked but the hour or so of TV soap setting the relationship triangles was just tedious. Some scenes did work. The original book and movie were noted for how passively people accepted their fate. No riots, no social breakdown. Everybody just quietly went home to die. In this one we had riots, social mayhem etc.The endings of the characters were a mixed bag. Some worked, some were out of character. Scenes that did work were very very strong. The father walking around his house for the last time, carefully turning off the power before joining his wife to inject their baby girl with cyanide and them both drinking down the suicide pills, powerful powerful stuff.The final scene in both book and first movie works well. Moira, already dying of radiation sickness either sitting or standing by her car watching the submarine leave to be sunk out at sea and asking Dwight Towers 'If you are already on your way..then wait for me..' In this movie she was hale and hearty with what looked like a picnic in a basket. odd sort of scene. this leads onto captain Towers abandoning his command in their ultimate 'hour of need' is completely OTT. A captain would never do that.So a real mixed bag but worth a view.

LeeRoss1 It is incredible how the novel by Nevil Shute has been corrupted and all power sapped from it's message. Subtlety, character, and the sense of hopelessness and horror are replaced by incredibly bad acting (sometimes just downright weird acting), questionable special effects, lots of corpses, and a plot that simply lacks sense. The novel still haunts me, the original film devastated me and gave me nightmares. This production was simply irritating, unnecessarily long, and populated by people I just could not care about. The issue of suicide seems to ignored completely and replaced by a passivity that's odd in the extreme. I suggest a reading of the Shute masterpiece and a viewing of the original film (seen in the context of the times, when nuclear war was all to real a threat and left many of us with nightmares about the horrible possibility.) This film is a travesty and a morbid curiosity at best. It lacks the powerful message and empathy of the intent of the author and producer of the source material.