Absolutely the worst movie.

A different way of telling a story

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Blistering performances.

Oh dear, where to begin. There are times when I'm proud to be British - we gave the world all sorts of things: tea, cricket, the Spice Girls - all of which are better than Flood. Flood tries to be like those big-budget American disaster films... but fails.In its favour, Flood can't complain about a lack of acting talent. Perhaps the strangest thing is how many decent actors can come together and do so little. Actually, the answer probably lies with the script. It's bad. Well, not bad, just full of clichés. It's like they're trying to be funny and self-parodying, only they're not - they're being serious.The film tries to crank up the tension by quick cutting and shaky camera work, plus some incredibly dramatic music just to point out just how dire the situation is when the Thames overflows and drowns half of London. However, despite the fast-paced direction and dramatic score, you have the dialogue bringing it back down to the quality of a sixth form drama production (no offense to sixth formers - I'm sure they'd do better).The special effects aren't that good, but they're not that bad either. Basically, they can be forgiven, but the dialogue can't. It's not just the dialogue, it's the set-up too. It confirms to every cliché going: it has the family coming together in face of a catastrophe, the budding romance, the token characters who you know are going to be washed away in the first splash of waves and, of course, the inept officials.I'm sure you've probably heard people say "It's worth a watch if there's nothing else on." Well, they're probably right about this one. If there was absolutely nothing else on TV, then you might put this on for a bit of background atmosphere. Just don't waste any money on this.

Flood seems to be the British version of a disaster movie. Lately we have seen movies such as The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and to an extent Twister set themes of destruction to our screens, all as well have failed to live up to their giant budgets and huge use of special effects. Like I said Flood is the British version of these sorts of films but unfortunately it is placed back in the Hollywood category as it is full of special effects and fails to really add anything new to what we have already seen.The title of the film makes it obvious what it is about. It begins with a storm surge wiping out a small town called Wick in the North of Scotland. The Met Office begin to investigate this event and a local professor, Leonard Morrison (Courtenay), discovers that the storm is heading South and will hit the Thames Barrier at the same time as high tide, causing mass volumes of water to flood into central London. The Deputy Prime Minister must come to a decision of how to act and is helped by the evacuation leader who is more concerned about the safety of her children then her job to protect the millions that inhabit London. Robert Carlyle plays Leonard's son Rob, who is an engineer on the Thames Barrier and manages to escape from it with his ex-wife Sam (Gilsig) moments after the storm hits, leaving them both to swim through London in search of safety. On their journey they come across other survivors who are in search for safety in the London Underground. As the Government attempt to purge the water from the capital, they must decide whether or not it is worth risking millions more lives in order to do so. Like I said the film is nothing original and it is something we have all seen before in the Hollywood films just with different landmarks being destroyed. The characters in the film never really seem bothered by the fact that London is being hit with gallons and gallons of water, and there is little urgency in the attempt to rescue it. What we have are characters who are being read aloud from a script, and ones that would never act in the way they do in the film. The acting in it is very poor and people expect better from a man who once played a Bond villain. Carlyle brings nothing to the role despite his high profile, and if anything seems to be uninterested in his role. Makes you wonder why he even signed up for it in the first place. Tom Courtenay however is even worse. He talks ridiculously slow for no reason what so ever and his sudden flush of knowledge is really unrealistic. The only one good bit of acting comes from a man who is sweeping Hollywood at the minute, Tom Hardy. Here he has a very small role but manages to steal the show in the small number of scenes he appears in. He shows just why he is such a sought after actor at present.From what I have read this film is also a miniseries that is fleshed out for that sake and cut in order to gain a minimal theatrical release. This is very noticeable as you watch the film as several scenes seem cut short and lack any tension. One scene, which sees a group rushing through a pipe as it fills with water, is cut short when it could have given us some high tension as many of the main actors were in that pipe. Many of the action scenes were cut short and most of the talking scenes discussing why the storm is hit are far too long. The pacing of the film is all over the place and that can only be down to the writing.The characters seem to have back stories attempting to break through but none of them ever really do. Again this could be because of the fact that it is really a miniseries that has been pushed together. If the characters were fleshed out more then they may have more connection with the audience. The camera work and direction of the film is also very television like and isn't suitable for a film, which again makes you wonder why it was ever considered for a cinematic release.The film is poor but I did started off enjoying it and slowly lost interest half way through. A fleshed out miniseries would have really worked for this as it is interesting seeing London engulfed in water, and as to how we would react. As a film this did not work despite the strong cast, the interesting idea, and the special effects, which at times are the only good thing in this film. At least something good came out of it and that is the brilliant Tom Hardy's flourishing career.1.5 / 5For more reviews and news: www.tolli-movieworld.blogpot.com

"Global warming is killing us all!". This is of course despite the fact that not a shred of concrete evidence supports this flawed "theory". Lets all face it people, you simply can't take 100 years out of billions of years geological history and come to the conclusion that the climate is changing because of any minor influences. Do people pollute? Sure they do. Are we raping the planet of natural resources? Probably. Are we significantly changing the climate? Probably not, since the geological record shows far greater climate changes than we have experienced in the last 1000 years. A single solar flare has more control over the climate than we do. A meteorite causes more changes in an afternoon than man has caused in his entire time on the planet. A volcano causes more rapid and lasting climate changes in 30 minutes than man causes in 200 years. So why do these liberal idiots keep pushing this asinine idea? So they can get lucrative government grants to "study" this "phenomenon". The real study should be done on the ignorant saps that ACTUALLY believe these fantastical stories. 20,000 years ago the last ice age peaked. I suppose that was due to the major influence of spear chucking savages driving around gas guzzling SUV mastodons? Wake up people. You are sheep who will believe anything.Oh, and the movie sucked.

Recap: A catastrophic and unpredictable storm hits northern Britain causing massive floods. Against all experience, the storm then moves south and finally reaches London where everyone is mostly unprepared for it. Caught in the middle of it is the family Morrison. Father Leonard is the professor that devoted his life to preparing for London and is the only one who recognizes the threat. His devotion has left him and his son Rob estranged, but Rob is still the engineer that knows the Thames Barrier best, the only but hopelessly overwhelmed defenses. And the Barrier is run by Rob's ex Sam.Comments: A good idea in the footsteps of The Day after Tomorrow. However, to make a movie of this kind work you need either massive amounts of water (and allowed to cause massive collateral damage) or massive amounts of CGI. Of course everyone opts for the second, but then you really need enough to make the images plausible. Flood don't quite cut it. Too much of the footage is too clearly fake, too clearly the result of CGI to make it believable. Sure, I know that even if the movie looked good it would be fake footage, but the images need to look real.I think the people responsible realized this and the response was to fill it with subplots focused on the people involved. We have one main one in the Morrison's, but there was many others. Actually too many. In what seems to be an attempt to cover up the fact that they couldn't provide good enough images it is filled with small subplots of either missing family or guilt ridden characters. But they are too many, and too little time are spent to really invest in them, they become rather uninteresting. I got the feeling that they was there to cover up plot holes in the main plot instead of really contributing something. So, this was not so good. OK, for a rainy afternoon when the flood risk is low, but nothing more.5/10