Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Really thought provoking and pretty depressing as well. This is a movie that all world leaders should be forced to watch at least once per year. A bit long but riveting none the less, well directed and well acted. The scenario was a pleasant change as the bulk of the movie is set in Austrailia as opposed to the US where I live. It is of course an Austrailian film. It was sobering to see the city of San Francisco post apocalypse as well as Alaska where you can always go to drop out and escape your demons. The war itself was over and done with at the very beginning of the movie, leaving the entire 3ish hours to deal with the aftermath. There are human diversions to break up the overwhelming seriousness of the southern hemisphere's impending demise from the radiation cloud making it's way south from the utterly obliterated north. The final solution kits that were being handed out by public health services containing poison, (a syringe for kids and pets and a pill for the grownups) designed to offer a quick death as opposed to suffering through the radiation sickness to meet the same inevitable end pose a moral question. Well worth a look.

When I was a kid (about 10) my late Father used to ask me to get "On the Beach" regularly (well, maybe 3 times a year) when I cycled to the Warwick (UK) library to get my own kids books. Never understood his fascination with it. When I moved to Finland, 40 years later, one of my "hobbies" is ferreting through the local 'Salvation Army' shop, and the book was unbelievably there, paperback, in English. HUH??. €0.10!!! When I read it, and wept buckets, I understood why. I ordered both the 1959 and the 2000 version DVD's from Amazon. 2000 version vastly superior. (As an aside, delete if irrelevant - My Father also had a fascination with the song, "Waltzing Matilda". Never understood why, till I read the lyrics. Then I did. He served in the Somme, you see. This week is kinda appropriate.)

Both the original book, the first movie and this one ignore (probably for dramatic effect) the real effects of fallout and the movement of weather from northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere.In the real world fallout decays using a rule of 7/10. If you had a lethal radiation dose of 1000 rads one hour after detonation then 7 hours later the dose is down to 100 rads. 49 hours later down to 10 rads etc. It seems that a decreasing dose of 5-10 rads per day is survivable..not pleasant and with horrific genetic problems etc..but people would live. Also the air itself isn't radioactive its the dust carried in it. In the case of the Alaska mission by the sub, 2 years after the event the radiation would have been minimal. Also there isn't that much mixing between northern and southern weather systems. That much radiation would never reach Australia in the first place.Enough comments here on wooden acting...there should be a prize given for the worst American accent. The showing of 2 year old bodies was also strictly for daytime TV viewers..they assuredly don't look like the corpse of the unfortunate girl in the TV station with the famous solar powered laptop...The submarine used was apparently square in shape in some scenes..entirely studio based with stock photography used for outside views..would have been nice if the same class of sub had been used in all the shots. I counted at least 3 different vessels used.Some scenes worked but the hour or so of TV soap setting the relationship triangles was just tedious. Some scenes did work. The original book and movie were noted for how passively people accepted their fate. No riots, no social breakdown. Everybody just quietly went home to die. In this one we had riots, social mayhem etc.The endings of the characters were a mixed bag. Some worked, some were out of character. Scenes that did work were very very strong. The father walking around his house for the last time, carefully turning off the power before joining his wife to inject their baby girl with cyanide and them both drinking down the suicide pills, powerful powerful stuff.The final scene in both book and first movie works well. Moira, already dying of radiation sickness either sitting or standing by her car watching the submarine leave to be sunk out at sea and asking Dwight Towers 'If you are already on your way..then wait for me..' In this movie she was hale and hearty with what looked like a picnic in a basket. odd sort of scene. this leads onto captain Towers abandoning his command in their ultimate 'hour of need' is completely OTT. A captain would never do that.So a real mixed bag but worth a view.

Well, we're on the beach again. And the first question that comes to my mind is - why? What was so very wrong with Kramer's 1961 original that the whole thing needed re-jigging? Here, we have Armand Assante replacing Gregory Peck as submarine commander Dwight Towers. Someone called Rachel Ward steps into Ava Gardner's shoes as Tower's love interest. And preposterously over-the-top Brian Brown - who got his big break in 'Murder By FX' - makes a determined but completely failed attempt to supplant Fred Astaire as the scientist. Various other B-movie nonentities cling fast to their ancillary parts.I'm sounding a little scathing, I know; when in truth this is a very competent little movie in its own right. It just happens to be inferior to its original of nearly 50 years vintage in almost every respect. And that's the point. Modernisation does not necessarily mean improvement.What does it add? Well, the first think to notice is photography in colour, instead of black-and-white. And I don't like it. For me; as a child, the cold war was represented in B&W. Not just on the movie screen but on television at home. Newsreels were always monochrome, and that is how my generation largely remembers that stark, terrifying period of history. Think of any cold-war movie, and you'll know what I mean. Moreover the social and political philosophy was also black-and-white: capitalist or communist, east or west, enemy or friend, right or wrong. There was no middle ground.Secondly, and obviously; in the intervening time, special-effects have advanced in leaps and bounds. Here we get to see some of the nuclear destruction that was denied us in Kramer's slightly flawed masterpiece. It's breathtaking stuff. But does it advance the story? Not one jot. Does it make for a better, more shocking, more convincing experience? I think not. To me, those still, silent, deserted streets viewed from a distance in the original, spoke volumes. What both these movies demonstrate is the complete irrelevence of special effects compared to a good story well told, whilst at the same time, modern movies' almost-addicted dependence upon them to carry the day.Then, we get to see the onset of radiation sickness. And once again it's more graphic in its presentation, with some good, hearty honking. But do we need it? Finally, there is the love triangle thing. And that too is needlessly more graphic and hysterical in a way that detracts from the constrained and understated original. Frankly; it's unbelievable. To see this Rachel Ward character strutting about amongst men as though sexual desire were still the biggest story in town, and all of them in turn fawning over her, as if the universal thought of imminent hideous extinction could be completely eclipsed by the sight of a well-figured slut, is just too ludicrous to countenance. And if that were not enough, we have the Dwight Towers' character becoming petulantly jealous over this woman's sexual dalliance with the Professor, despite the fact they're all going to be dead in a week anyway. So how in hell can it matter? Might as well go for a threesome.If there had been no Neville Shute novel, and if there had been no previous movie; this would have been the standard-bearer for the cinematic portrayal of nuclear extinction. And it would have been - and is - reasonably good. However, there was a novel and that was extremely good. And there was an earlier movie which both maintained an adequate fidelity to that novel and was quite excellent. Which brings me back to the original question: If you can't improve upon the original - why bother trying to replicate it? Well; I guess you can read the book. And I guess you can watch both of the movies. I have, and my comments are here. Decide for yourselves. Perhaps in the end, each is a movie of its time, and reflects the social mores of its generation.