The Towering Inferno (1974)
Directed by John Guillermin
At the opening party of a colossal—but poorly constructed—skyscraper, a massive fire breaks out, threatening to destroy the tower and everyone in it.
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What critics compared The Towering Inferno to
Nothing is subtle, and Ioan Gruffudd's cowardly tycoon is a copy of Richard Chamberlain's engineer from The Towering Inferno, but Johnson, a human edifice, is more than equal to the preposterous destruction.
Oblivious to both narrative logic and the laws of physics, the cliché-filled “San Andreas” doesn’t nearly have the star power of earlier, better disaster movies it borrows from like “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Earthquake” and “The Towering Inferno” — which featured Paul Newman as the tower’s architect, a role played here by an embarrassed-looking Ioan Gruffudd (as Gugino’s fiancé).
Meanwhile, Mrs The Rock is romancing a slick architect who – like Paul Newman in The Towering Inferno – has just designed the tallest building in San Francisco.
The film in fact would be a paltry thing indeed without its commendably imperturbable star, especially given a shifting landscape that no longer finds the modern-day equivalents of Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters, or Fred Astaire (who was Oscar-nominated for The Towering Inferno, of all things) willing to climb onboard such spectacles as they were once wont to do.
In fact, Soderbergh has cited the Allen-produced The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974) as inspiratuons, though the Allen-directed The Swarm(1978) may be closer than anything else—only with a greater degree of governing intelligence and considerably more polish.
Think The Towering Inferno, as done by Anthony Trollope.
Back in the ‘70s when movies like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure were huge, people gathered in droves to watch their favorite actors brave calamities of epic proportions, be it a raging fire, a ground-shattering earthquake or even a killer swarm of hyper-intelligent bees.
Now while such a large cast makes "Contagion" sound like "The Towering Inferno" for the hypochondriac set, it plays its cards remarkably close to the vest.
The cavalcade of noted actors and the "world in peril" angle would seem to make the film a natural heir to deeply stupid yet inexplicably enjoyable flicks like The Towering Inferno, Earthquake and in the '90s, when disco returned to the charts and disaster movies to the megaplex (cosmically linked events, one could argue), Dante's Peak or Outbreak.
He has long since surpassed the previous title-holder, producer Irwin Allen (“The Poseidon Adventure,’’ “The Towering Inferno’’), to become the Cecil B. DeMille of his generation, purveying jaw-dropping sensation yoked to cheap sentiment and appallingly (or is that appealingly?)
Of course, in the tradition of such ensemble-rich Hollywood disaster flicks as The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake (1978), 2012 offers up a lot of talented actors getting paid obscene amounts of money to ham it up in support roles in front of a green screen – Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Stephen McHattie, Jimi Mistri and George Segal all get to ask 'What was that?", roll their eyes a lot and die or fall in love.
Even “master of disaster” Irwin Allen liked to shake up the status quo in such films as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, but Emmerich has no imagination: His A-listers live, his support players die.
Unlike something like the original "Poseidon Adventure" (which Emmerich steals from liberally, especially in the film's last half-hour) or "The Towering Inferno," "2012" practices none of the craft of the classic suspense movies.
Walker and Helen Reddy as a singing nun, while The Towering Inferno found a role for O.J. Simpson.
It's a little better than "Earthquake" but not as good as "The Towering Inferno," because it doesn't star Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.
Ever since the early 70's, moviegoers have approached watching disaster epics -- like "Earthquake," "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" -- with a guilty pleasure, train wreck-style sensibility.
If you grew up watching "Earthquake!" or "The Towering Inferno" -- or even their latter-day counterparts "Twister" and "Deep Impact" -- you'll be pleased to see "Day" follows the disaster movie playbook to the letter.
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As satisfyingly hokey and full of Designated Colorful Characters as any of the great 1970s human-face-of-disaster epics ? the four Airport sagas, The Towering Inferno, etc. ? on which director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin (the 1994 Stargate team, who also wrote the screenplay) drew for inspiration.
It’s an atmospheric movement that reminded me of a demonic survivalist cover of The Towering Inferno or even Die Hard .
Instead, The Meg trails lazily in its wake, constantly reminding you — just as Skyscraper did with The Towering Inferno and Die Hard — that there are better films of its ilk that you could be watching instead.
Some of the spectacular visual effects — like an enormous bridge crumbling and a capsizing ferry hurling passengers and cargo into dark churning waters — recall the skeltering big-budget chaos of such '70s disaster epics as "The Towering Inferno" and "The Poseidon Adventure."
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There were films like “The Towering Inferno” and “Earthquake,” the kind of exercises in star power where you would think, hey, that’s O.J. Simpson as the head of security.
But when the legendary actors finally got together in 1974, they made The Towering Inferno.