Good as Disaster movies go but somewhat contrived, December 19, 2006

I figured when I first heard about this movie on TV, that it would just be a cheap rip-off of "The Day After Tomorrow," but I was far from right. OK, so this movie's special effects aren't as good as ones from movies like "Twister" or "The Day After Tomorrow" (the best one)but I still found myself entertained while watching this on TV. Very good storyline, and the special effects were at least decent. Bottomline, a suprisingly entertaining movie. Smart move by Lions Gate Home Entertainment for putting this out on DVD.

Keeping in mind that this is a made for television mini-series, DAY OF DESTRUCTION is good entertainment. While burdened with derivative characters and mediocre acting, the movie sustains interest as the above average effects (for tv of course) carry the weight of the film. The concept of such a powerful storm hitting a major city like Chicago is well thought out and its ramifications devastating. Dianne Wiest does well in her role as as congresswoman who is trying to get legislation passed regarding important environmental issues. Nancy McKeon from tv's FACTS OF LIFE offers a sincere enthusiastic performance in her role as a tv anchorwoman, and Randy Quaid seems to be having fun playing Tornado Tommy, a stormchaser who is enthralled with the force of the storms. Thomas Gibson is wooden in a leading role, but Ari Cohen as the whistleblower and Andrew Jackson as McKeon's boss redeem themselves noteably. While its length seems a little stretched out, if you remember it was first...

I enjoyed this for what it was and the idea of 2 mega storms was interesting. i have one complaint though - we played this on a computer and part way through it suddenly jumped to the titles and we had to go into scene selection to complete the viewing. The story line and acting were ok and i liked the fact that there was a build up to the actual disaster which allowed the charcters to become more real. The action was a bit contrived though and while i can see people being so silly, i hardly think that they would be so blase about it all. Still, all in all, i would recommend this to people who enjoy disaster movies.