Sorry, this movie sucks

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 film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

After "Avalanche", "Meteor" and such other creatively titled TV-movies as "Fire!" and "Flood!" there were few places left to go except to dig into Hollywood's past and remake "The Hurricane." Thankfully, the cycle finally burnt out before such epics as "Landslide", "Hail" or "Mud Puddle" could be produced. Original director Roman Polanski became embroiled in his (still not completely resolved!) statutory rape case, causing him to withdraw from the troubled project, though Farrow stuck with it for reasons known only to her. She plays the single daughter of a strict naval Captain (Robards) who is in place in 1922 Samoa to uphold order. Once there, she catches the eye of a young man (Ka'ne) who is in line to be King of the local natives. When he tosses aside the bride who had been arranged for him in order to canoodle with Farrow, both his people and Robards (who nurses a barely concealed incestuous bent for his daughter) are up in arms. Meanwhile, young naval officer Bottoms, who has feelings for Farrow himself, and sneering Sergeant Keach, who delights in looking down on the locals, set their sites on Ka'ne as well. As the passions and tensions reach a high point, the title event descends on the area with little warning (or even surprise, it seems!) and decimates virtually everything and everyone. Farrow, though only 34, is far too old for her role. She tries to inject some degree of feeling into her part and is sometimes ably photographed by cinematographer Sven Nykvist (with whom she was having an affair during filming), but it's pretty hopeless. A lot of actresses look great wet, but scrawny, fine-haired Farrow is not one of them. Also, her ill-fitting, unflattering costumes succeed in making her look even more bird-like and gangly than she already is. This is strange since Theoni V. Aldredge succeeded in making her look stunning only a few years earlier in the same basic time period. Part of the problem must be attributed to her really bad hairstyling on his film. Robards is mostly one note and has a fairly ludicrous role to play. His final scene is particularly stupid. Ka'ne is actually not as bad as one might expect, though he needed a more intuitive director in order to give the role and the film its due. He was simply too green. At least he is very easy on the eyes at all times and seems to be giving his all to the part. Bottoms, who reportedly tangled with Farrow during filming, does all right and Keach is one note, though not ineffective. Other names among the cast include Howard as an alcoholic priest and Von Sydow (there no doubt at the request of his frequent director Troell) as a doctor. Every other cast member performs as if it is his or her first-and-only time in front of the camera and, for most of them, it was. None of the below the title actors seem to have any concept of how to move, look or speak like someone from 1922, a chief culprit being Rutgers as a local society matron. The scenery is lovely, the Nino Rota score is strong, but the story is hackneyed, the screenplay is disjointed, the editing is choppy and the direction is weak. In striving for convincing winds and waves, the makers forgot to a) allow the viewer to clearly see what is happening and b) make the viewer care about the people being tossed about and drowned. The finale is unrealistic to say the least with NOTHING in sight except a few bits of debris and the besieged lovers. Where did the massive ship drift off to? Where are the bodies of the many, many natives and others? This is the least of the film's problems, though. It's just a big, expensive misfire.

While researching some info on this movie so that I could list some lobby cards from it on Ebay...I stumbled onto this great site. However, after reading the "FAINT PRAISE" that a few have written regarding this absolutely dreadful film, I have to wonder...exactly WHAT movie were you watching? "Good things going for it"??..."Had Jan Troell directing it" (as if that means anything!!)..."Jason Robards was good"... I mean COME ON!! Sure...the "opening title credits of HOWARD THE DUCK" were well-done, but does that mean the film has any merit at all? "Children of the Living Dead" had TOM SAVINI (a great makeup artist in it), but does that redeem that awful excuse to waste good celluloid at all? HURRICANE is SOOOOOOOOOOO bad, that it can be summed up in TWO WORDS: "Dayton Ka'ne" (or is that 3 words, because of the stupid apostrophe in his last name?) And is it pronounced "Kaaaah nay", as in "Kaaaant Act", or is it pronounced "CANE" as in "This film is so far from Citizen Kane, that it makes Revenge of the Nerds 3 look like Hamlet?" Maybe it was a "play on words" created by that master-craftsman Jan Troell (who is CERTAINLY deserving of being a "TROLL" for dropping this dreck on society), and the movie was intended to be titled "Hurri-Ka'ne". Maybe Dayton was taking too long in his trailer fixing his hair, rather than reading his lines, and Troell-doll had to yell into his megaphone..."HEY DAYTON...we are ready for the 123rd take on your opening lines!! Report to the set before I attack you with a "Ka'ne"!! Oh...and as for MIA FARROW...she never could act her way out of a wet paper bag anyway, and even when the paper bag is drenched in Hurri-ka'ne water, she STILL was dreadful. Plus...she weighs about 17 pounds, so if the winds were really that strong, wouldn't she simply blow away and then land somewhere on the set of a Woody Allen film? Lucky for her, the 37 people who actually saw this film in theaters got the treat of watching her spout off lines that are so embarrassingly bad, that you are almost WISHING you could've run screaming out of the theater and into the next one to watch...AVALANCHE. Ooops...ANOTHER Mia Farrow disaster movie. Let's face it. Dino DeLaurentiis was NO Irwin Allen. Mia Farrow, Jason Robards, and Dayton Ka'ne are NOT "disaster movie-worthy" actors. They simply aren't the type. Robards, while a GREAT actor...stunk in this thing and the upcoming Raise The Titanic. By 1979, even IRWIN himself couldn't "sell" a disaster film. The genre was dead. Why they continued to make these when the audience was WAY past them is beyond me. It was a sad ending to a great genre. A FUN genre as well. From 1972-1976, DISASTER rules the theaters. It was FUN to go to the movies then. But then Meteor, The Swarm, Hurricane, Avalanche, Raise The Titanic, When Time Ran Out, and Airport '79 had to screw it up.

I actually like this movie, if nothing else, for gorgeous Dayton Ka'Ne, the son of University of Dayton football star, LeRoy Ka'Ne, who graduated from U.D. in the early 50s (my mom was one of his professors). It's sad that he didn't do any more than one other film. The other well-known actors had to struggle with a pretty weak script, but Nino Rota's music was nice and the scenery was GORGEOUS! I watch this movie when I need a mini-trip from the Midwest. One thing I always wondered---what on earth did Matangi see in pale, bony Charlotte when he could have had any of the beautiful, voluptuous Polynesian girls on the island???

HURRICANE is not a great film, but it sure IS entertaining. Some of the scenes and situations are ludicrous (Jason Robards has the hots for his daughter, Mia Farrow) and the dialogue is often hilarious. But if you stick around, you'll find that the production values are astonishing. Among the talents behind the camera are Jan Troell (THE EMIGRANTS, THE NEW LAND), who directed; Sven Nykvist (cinematographer for many of Ingmar Berman's later films) who filmed on location in the South Pacific; and Nino Rota, who wrote a lovely, haunting musical theme. The performances aren't so bad (considering the dialogue) and the special effects at the end show you why this was one of the most expensive films of its day.