Flood (2007)

Hmm. Let me tell you about one of my favourite books. In 2002 Richard Doyle had his story 'Flood' published. In 'Flood' a storm coincides with a high tide which sends a huge tidal wave towards London. Along the way an oil refinery blows up, and with the oil on top of the water, London is not only submerged, but set on fire as well. There are (Pretty much) no main characters as the story swaps between normal citizens and government figures trying to work out what to do, effectively every single person in the capital are the main characters, sure, there are some characters who are mentioned more often than others, but London itself is the main character.

What follows is a realistic approach to how London would deal with what is effectively a disaster on Biblical proportions. Richard Doyle had interviewed and questioned loads of people and organisations, gathered loads of information and thought hard on what people, including important politicians, would do. The acknowledgements at the back of the book include DEFRA, the Cabinet Office, the British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence, and the Department of Health. And it really does show.

The film,does the exact opposite. The first major flaw in this film is that London doesn't get set on fire. London being set on fire, added more suspense to the story, it made a terrible situation even more dangerous. I understand that it isn't in your budget, but that was the main thing I was looking forward to.

Apart from that the film story is still relatively the same, a flood comes along at Spring high tide and submerges London. The problem is, rather than focus on the community as a whole, it only focuses on a small cast. We have Rob Morrison (Robert Carlyle), Samantha Morrison (Jessalyn Gilseg, a.k.a Claire's hot mom from 'Heroes'), Leonard Morrison (Tom Courtenay), Deputy Prime Minister Campbell (David Suchet), and Police Commissioner Patricia Nash (Joanne Whalley). And they're all as wooden as the tree which was used to make the pages for the book.

Yeah, the acting isn't really that good, which is bizarre since we have great acting talents like Carlyle and Suchet, who in all fairness were the strongest in this, but that's not saying much. Hell, even Tom 'Bane' Hardy is in this!. But even if they were at their A game, they couldn't save this TV film, since everyone else gave little to no effort. Courtenay was the main offender here, where in literally every single scene he drained the energy from it.

The other characters meanwhile just keep intruding on the film. The two subways worker (One of whom is Tom Hardy) apparently weren't worth being radioed about the evacuation, and only served as a means of getting main characters out, while Nash's...um...assistant only serves to pop up every once in a while to say whether Nash's kids have been found. In fact, Nash seems to have too much control over the situation. She may be a police commissioner, but surely one of the military figures in the room have more authority than her.

Not only that, but Nash doesn't seem to register that organising things take time, as shown when she asks where the American Chinook helicopters were. Now, in all fairness, in the book the President of America does consider cutting the UK loose and focus on saving his own economy. Well, with the city of London under water the global economy will take a bit of a pounding. But then again US, as well as French and German military do assist in helping search and rescue. In this, there's no sign of them.

But that's not all. Rather than show us Nash taking full control of the situation, it shows she's more concerned with finding her kids. Understandable but you do have the capital of Britain flooded. But what really frustrates me is when Nash's assistant tells her that her kids have been found. We then get the following line:
Nash: I haven't lost my kids.
Leonard: They're all that matter.
Oh yeah! Her kids are all that matter. It's not like you have the heart of Britain's economy submerged and a death toll most likely in the hundreds of thousands. Oh no, as long as you have your kids, everything is all right. Bitch.

A bit of a spoiler segment here. If you don't know this already, London has the Thames Barrier. It is a beautiful and brilliant piece of engineering, and is designed to prevent London from flooding in the case of high tides or storms. In the book/film, global warming has caused the sea level to rise and therefore the Thames Barrier is overwhelmed. In the book, really the only way for London to recover (Apart from the fire, rain puts that out) is simply for the waters to recede. In the film, apparently just raising the Thames Barrier cures everything. And because the military are impatient, they want to blow it up. The Thames Barrier cost £534million in 1984, and would help to defend London against future flood risks, and the military want to blow it up. And all because they couldn't wait two minutes. We even get this line at one point:
Deputy Prime Minister: Major General, your aircraft are to remain on the ground at the present time.
Someone. presumably the Major General: Deputy Prime Minister, get me a reason to delay this.
Um, how about he's the Deputy Prime Minister you idiot?
And how come the room at the Barrier where you open the gates have to be sealed? Which means that whoever goes in there has to sacrifice themselves?

And now, the effects. For a TV movie, they're not bad effects, though you do get the odd helicopter which doesn't look right. The water effects themselves vary from scene to scene. The opening storm scene in Scotland where we see a village submerged is a prime example for when it's bad, since it doesn't look real at all. When we get sky shots of the tidal wave racing through London, it does in fact look really good. The problem is we don't really see any major consequences. Most of what we see occurs at the Thames Barrier or underground. We might see the odd street get flooded, but we don't really see any major destruction occur. Unlike the book where we get told what people are experiencing while London is flooding and burning. If we're told about any tragedy or calamity, I don't recall it, in which case I'd blame the bland acting and insipid dialogue for boring me to death. There are also some really bad green screen effects.

For what the film is, in all honesty, isn't that bad. It's still pretty enjoyable, though I'm not entirely sure why. But for an adaptation, it's stupid. The characters we follow in the film aren't taken from the novel at all, the acting is half arsed, the dialogue is even worse, and the film just ends. It pretty much just ends, we get no aftermath or conclusion, it just ends. The effects were pretty much the only saving grace, but it was just mediocre at best.