The concept is interesting, but the movie ends up being something youโd see on mystery science theater 3000 with Joel and the robots making fun of it. This movie is a joke. In the hands of a capable director, they mightโve had something here, but it suffers from so many flaws.
The editing is absolutely terrible. They cut the scenes of what supposed to be a rural road leading onto a main artery and they have a stock footage shot of an interstate highway crowded with cars, but the lightning doesnโt match and it doesnโt seem plausible in that location. They use the same piece of footage twice.
When the the hydrogen bomb goes off, itโs enormous, but they mix it up with atomic bomb footage from the Nevada testing grounds and it just doesnโt match. And you really have to suspend this belief on Ray. Millandโs character decides to drive back into Los Angeles as though heโd never heard of radiation. They mention radiation in the air just once, but nobody seems to have any problems with it. When the bomb goes off, thereโs not a tremor thereโs, no wind no sound of explosion no EMP effect.
The music is absolutely terrible. Sometimes sounds like music you find in one of those educational movies from the 1950s on good hygiene or getting in corporate setting while there in a car chase scene. There is a little bit of inspiring jazz at the beginning, but it quickly is discovered to be wrong for the movie.
Physical effects. People get shot point blank with a shotgun in the stomach from 7 feet away and they just fall down. Thereโs no blood no guts no nothing. His own son gets shot in the leg and they say heโs lost a lot of blood, but there isnโt a drop on his rolled up blue jeans or on the floor where it occurs. This happens repeatedly.
The acting is corny, the script uninspired, the cinematography and lighting flat. Yes Ray Milland is an acting legend but he canโt direct to save his life - this seems to have been put together by a 13 year old. If you wanna laugh and make fun of the movie, watch it. Otherwise I wouldnโt bother.