Two disaster films worth watching

Several disaster, end-of-the-world pictures are hitting movie screens this year. In fact there’s so many of them, viewers might wonder whether Hollywood knows something the rest of us don’t. These days, disaster films usually are more about the CGI special effects than character, and the language is nearly always peppered with profanity. But two now available on DVD are completely involving and mostly about relationships and the sanctity of life.

My first choice is the G-rated Airport from 1970. This plot-driven drama has a pro-life message, and although there are a couple of examples of adultery, two other characters have solid marriages. The film is sometimes funny, occasionally touching, and there’s always an underlying tension derived from a cuckoo with a bomb on an airplane. This is back in the days when you could smoke on planes and evidently walk on board with something that goes boom.

The all-star cast includes Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin. Helen Hayes won an Oscar for her performance as an impish stowaway, but it’s Maureen Stapleton as the wife of the bomber who steals your heart. Airport was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Cinematography. And this was the last film scored by one of Hollywood’s best composers and conductors, Alfred Newman.

Next up, from 2012, The Impossible, based on the true story of a couple played by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, who with their three children are vacationing at a tropical resort in Thailand. Their idyllic getaway is interrupted on the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, when a devastating tsunami destroys the coastal zone, separating the family and triggering a frantic search.

This movie offers Hollywood’s CGI at its best, along with a riveting script and powerful performances from Watts, McGregor and young Tom Holland. I thought this was one of the best films of that year.

Though this story is based on true events, the filmmaker also uses it to deliver a symbolic message, reminding viewers that in this era of “What have you done for me lately?” mankind will survive we start looking out for the other guy. Compassion cannot be mandated by law. It has to come from man’s conscience and sense of what’s right and wrong. It is that spiritual element in human beings that aids them in rising above their own welfare. This concern for others is evidenced in The Impossible. Compassion becomes palpable, with several scenes offering examples of selflessness sure to inspire.

The Impossible is rated PG-13 and it’s far too intense for little ones. But I caught no harsh or profane language, and though the tsunami and its aftermath are graphically depicted, it’s not done merely to be exploitive. While the film is at times difficult to view due to the torment the protagonists must endure, nonetheless, The Impossible shows hope abides even in times of moral and physical devastation.

Listen to Phil Boatwright’s DVD review on The World and Everything in It.