Flood DVD Review

As the biggest storm in history batters the eastern coast of Scotland, Keith Hoskins (Planner) and the MET Office team predict that the storm will move into the North Sea but it turns back towards the south east coast and onwards to London. Professor Leonard Morrison (Courtenay) calculates that the storm will hit at high tide, pushing a surge of water towards London and one that the Tidal Barrier will not manage to storm. As London braces itself for the storm to hit, Scotland Yard commissionaire Patricia Nash (Whalley) has to comprehend the possibility of having to evacuate two million people before the tidal floodwaters hit.

Disaster movies have been the stalwart of the film industry with Hollywood using all that nature has to offer to destroy major cities throughout the world but this time London is the target and the floodwater is coming.

When a British disaster movie about the flooding of London after one of the worst storms in living memory was proposed this must have seems like a great idea and one that could have made a huge profit at the box office. Even though the UK has never really been the main emphasis of a film of this kind, the timing of this movie couldn’t have been any worst. With a 2007 summer release planned, the UK was hit by one of the worst storms in living memory and cities like Hull, Sheffield and some of the South Coast were devastated by crippling floods. With real people facing real disaster problems, escaping into a movie that shows the same thing probably wasn’t what the public would like to see but if the filmmakers could make a movie that dramatised an event like this with great care and real human drama, then it may be a success but unfortunately ‘Flood’ is a disaster.

After the success ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, the environmental disaster movie was bound to have a few films trying to capture box office enthusiasm shown to that film but this is not always a good thing. A disaster movie set in the British capital might have sounded like a good idea and the advent of computer generated visual effects means that any major city can be devastated but without a story to give you a reason to care then the film is a complete disaster.

The premise of a tidal surge of unprecedented power and size heading up the Thames River, one that the Tidal Barrier couldn’t handle, is promising but while the scenes of disaster and devastation are handled extremely well, it is the human story that is lacking and even B-Movie in standard. With a good ensemble cast that includes Robert Carlyle, Jessalyn Gilsig, Tom Courtenay, Joanne Whalley and David Suchet, you would expect a lot better but the performances and the story itself is laughingly bad. Trying to put a human element into the scenes of disaster is all well and good but you have to write something that is believeable but these scenes in ‘Flood’ are just awful.

While the visual effects are impressive the human scenes are awful and make ‘Flood’ almost laughably bad in most of the key scenes. This isn’t a disaster movie it is a disaster of a movie.

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the transfer is good.

BONUS FEATURES

Cast and Crew Interviews (26.06 mins) Director Tony Mitchell and producers Justin Bodle and Peter McAleese and stars Robert Carlyle, Jessalyn Gilsig, Tom Courtenay and David Suchet talk about how they got involved with the movie, the script, the characters and performances, the relationships in the movie, the physical aspects of the film and creating the visual effects.

Trailers Previews of ‘Earth’, ‘The Lives of Others’, ‘The Lost Room’ and ‘Right at Your Door’

OVERALL

The DVD treatment for ‘Flood’ is a little dry and lacking in anything that will make a real splash. The interviews are fine but the lack of a commentary track or making of featurette is a disappointment.