'The
Towering Inferno' is one of those early disaster movies that helped
stabilise the genre. Set in the fictional Glass Tower, which is the
biggest building in the world (and made in 1974, back when the
biggest tower in the world could believably have been built in
America and be 550 metres tall) as it catches fire during an opening
party on one of the top floors.
At over two and a half hours, it tends to drag a little, and I can't put all of that down to being an older film. It feels a little too puffed up for its own good. Kind of like Coco Austin or the 'Hobbit' series. It makes for good background viewing though, as you can zone out for a good five or ten minutes and then come back into it without really having missed anything of import. The acting was pretty hammy too, and the characters (though outlined beyond mere clichés, for the most part) were not fully explored. This loss in characterisation is to be expected in these flicks though, and the film did well to tell a handful of mostly unrelated stories (many of which ended badly, to my appreciation (am I a bad person?)) about a deaf lady, and old scammer, a cat, a guy sleeping with his secretary, and uh, yeah.
Some of the shots were a little cheesy, but the effects generally hold up very well (and the massive model they built for shooting was really impressive, check it out). I loved the occasional cuts to the building's exterior to give us an idea of the fire's general progression (General Progression) (as well as the earlier cuts to the fire starting and then growing in a storage area). The action was solid throughout, and I liked all the fiery deaths. The script was fine too, and most of the actors were clearly enjoying themselves - also, it was an all-star cast, and it was fun spotting so many famous faces in often quite minor roles.
At over two and a half hours, it tends to drag a little, and I can't put all of that down to being an older film. It feels a little too puffed up for its own good. Kind of like Coco Austin or the 'Hobbit' series. It makes for good background viewing though, as you can zone out for a good five or ten minutes and then come back into it without really having missed anything of import. The acting was pretty hammy too, and the characters (though outlined beyond mere clichés, for the most part) were not fully explored. This loss in characterisation is to be expected in these flicks though, and the film did well to tell a handful of mostly unrelated stories (many of which ended badly, to my appreciation (am I a bad person?)) about a deaf lady, and old scammer, a cat, a guy sleeping with his secretary, and uh, yeah.
Some of the shots were a little cheesy, but the effects generally hold up very well (and the massive model they built for shooting was really impressive, check it out). I loved the occasional cuts to the building's exterior to give us an idea of the fire's general progression (General Progression) (as well as the earlier cuts to the fire starting and then growing in a storage area). The action was solid throughout, and I liked all the fiery deaths. The script was fine too, and most of the actors were clearly enjoying themselves - also, it was an all-star cast, and it was fun spotting so many famous faces in often quite minor roles.
The
whole dedicated to the firemen of the world thing felt a bit sappy,
but I get it. They should totally do a remake of this for 9/11 - I
know they sort of have, but more overt, and throw in some comedy in
there (has it been 22.3 years yet?)
The Towering Inferno: 46.0