Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

ma-cortes An active volcano threatens a south Pacific island resort and its guests as a power struggle ensues between the property's developer , James Franciscus , and a drilling foreman , Paul Newman . Molten lava and explosion spread across the island . As an all-star cast is on the run when Mother Nature blows her top .Exciting film about a volcanic eruption threatens a Pacific island that packs blasts , thrills , overwhelming scenes of blowing up , suspense , excessive talking and turns out to be slightly entertaining . Allen's shameless rehash of all his disaster film clichés set on a Pacific island in which time never seems to run out , as a video version runs 141 minutes . Disastrous catastrophe movie in which lacks characterization , being an immense bore . Lousy screenplay by the prestigious Carl Foreman and Stirling Silliphant ; both of whom were presumably well paid . This formula intrigue movie belongs to catastrophe genre of the 70s , being the undisputed king , ¨The towering inferno¨ along with ¨Earthquake¨ , ¨Two minutes warning¨ and many others ; this formula disaster movie was widely developed by Irwin Allen , previously winner of numerous Oscars for ¨Poseidon¨ until the failures as ¨Beyond Poseidon¨, ¨Swarm¨ and this ¨When the time ran out¨ , retitled ¨Earth's final fury¨ . Filmed at the height of the disaster genre from the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series profits of an all-star though really wasted and a suspenseful final that takes place at a bridge surrounded by molten lava . The bridge was 30 feet above the stage, with smoke bombs and light flashes used to simulate the lava. Main cast carries out average acting such as Paul Newman , Jacqueline Bisset and William Holden , he was hospitalized for six days during production to treat his alcoholism after director James Goldstone convinced producer Irwin Allen that Holden was a danger to himself and others in the cast. Furthermore , a top-notch secondary casting such as Valentina Cortese , Barbara Carrera , Veronica Hamel , Alex Karras , Burgess Meredith , Red Buttons , James Franciscus , Pat Morita and Ernest Borgnine . Ernest Borgnine claims in his memoirs that the reason why the film's special effects were so cheap looking was that the huge amount spent on location shooting absorbed what was usually spent on FX. Many actors were all under contract with Irwin Allen, and appear in this film to void their contracts. Colorful and gripping photography in Panavision by Fred J. Koenekamp . Intriguing and thrilling score by Lalo Schifrin in his usual style . This big-budgeted disaster movie was middlingly directed by James Goldstone ; this was final feature film of Goldstone . He was a director and writer, known for Scalplock (1966) , ¨Jigsaw¨ ,¨A Man Called Gannon¨ , ¨They Only Kill Their Masters¨ , ¨Red sky at morning¨ , ¨Winning" or "500 miles" and ¨Swashbuckler¨ . Goldstone was also an ordinary TV movies director and subsequently made another catastrophe film , Roller-coaster (1977), much better than the disastrous and monumental bore ¨When time ran out¨ .

Alexander Chamberlain Wow, what can I say? Never have I seen such an appalling movie come out of a major studio. How this film ever got into theater's is simply beyond me. Direct-to-video would have been more appropriate with the director opting for an "Alan Smithee" credit to spare the embarrassment. There is not a single redeeming value to be found in this horrendous piece of clap-trap. The acting is deplorable, the script is inane, the sets look like left-overs from Fantasy Island, the dialog is awful (and, at times, unintentionally hilarious) and the "special" effects are unspeakably bad. To approach this movie with the expectation of seeing a good feature film is utter lunacy. The only way to watch this movie is to take it for what it is. A joke.Let's begin with the special effects, shall we? According to IMDb, When Time Ran Out... was filmed on a budget of over 20 million dollars. You will have a VERY hard time believing this after witnessing the not-so-special effects presented here. They could not possibly have cost more than a few dollars. For the daytime shots, the volcano is a painting matted onto the frame, with black diesel smoke being emitted from behind it. During nighttime, the volcano is shown via stock footage, which doesn't even resemble the original volcano seen during daytime. And don't even get me started on the climactic scene in which the resort explodes in a massive fireball. Let's just say I've seen more convincing special-effects in episodes of Bewitched.The script? Horrendous. From dialog to storyline, the script is riddled with clichés and fails to deliver anything even closely resembling quality entertainment. I actually cringed when some of the characters delivered their lines. Try not to laugh as Holden spouts lines such as "Nicki dear, we have to get out of here, the volcano's pouring lava this way!". James Franciscus's overblown dialog is particularly amusing ("There's not going to be any evacuation!!"). The scene that takes the cake for being the most cringe-worthy is the beach scene with Newman and Bisset. This scene will have you searching frantically for your remote to hit fast-forward.As many other users have already said, the plot recycles ideas from many of Allen's previous disaster movies and relies HEAVILY on clichés. And since the budget for special effects was clearly non-existent, the director opted to film endless footage of actors reacting to off-screen calamities while blaring melodramatic music in the background. In fact, about half this movies running time is composed of actors making faces into the camera. The scene in which the all-star cast journeys to the other side of the island by car is particularly noteworthy. It consists of 10 full minutes of actors sitting in cars, staring into space or at each other, while trying hard not to actually say anything. Somebody actually got paid to write this?As you may have already guessed, many aspects of the movies storyline are utterly absurd. Here are a few examples that will have you roaring with laughter or just leave you scratching your head…1) There is a laboratory perched right ON THE LIP of an ACTIVE volcano. Who would spend millions of dollars to build this?! As expected, the place is vaporized when the volcano erupts.2) The volcano will occasionally spew meteor-like lava balls which only hit the luxury hotel. Furthermore, the lava balls do only minor damage while the all-star cast is in the hotel, but when they have reached a safe location the lava balls cause the entire hotel to explode, killing everyone inside. Very inconsistent.3) The volcano creates a tidal wave which comes TOWARDS the island. It ravages every part of the coastline except where the luxury hotel is located. How convenient.4) The all-star cast is forced to cross a rickety bridge over a river of what is apparently cold lava (a scene that takes a FULL 20 MINUTES to complete). Anyone who took high school physics class would know that the bridge and anyone/anything on it would be incinerated by the heat radiating from the magma but clearly logic is not a concern in this movie. Why they have to cross the damn thing is never explained either. Action for the sake of action I suppose. Once they cross it, they walk a few feet to a cave where they hide out for the rest of the movie.5) Jacqueline Bisset adopts a completely different hairstyle midway through the film. Just how long did the production stall on this thing?! The acting in this movie is appalling. Newman barely acts and looks extremely uncomfortable just being there. Bisset fails spectacularly at trying to act sexy (it looks more like she has gas) and the way she delivers many of her lines is awkward. Holden, a legendary actor, gives what is no doubt the worst performance of his career. Franciscus overacts to the point of insanity and the rest of the cast is not even worth mentioning. They're just a bunch of television stars who are used to appearing in crap like this.The cinematography is pathetic. Our director, James Goldstone, has seemingly achieved the impossible: making a tropical island look ugly. Seriously, this movie has almost no visual appeal to it, making it all the more painful to endure. It's also blatantly obvious that many of the "outdoor" scenes were filmed on a sound-stage.Shockingly, When Time Ran Out… was nominated for an Academy Award (for best costume design anyway). Despite the (undeserved) nomination, this movie is not recommended unless you are looking for a few unintentional laughs. The only good thing that can be said about this travesty is that it (mercifully) ended the "disaster movie craze" of the 1970's. For that reason alone, this movie gets 2 stars instead of 1.

David In my rankings of Newman's output, this is rock bottom. I'm a big fan and my heart goes out to the man, retrospectively, because he will have known from day one that he had become embroiled in the turkey of all turkeys. Almost every aspect of the film is woeful. The set, the melodrama, the 2-dimensional characters, the frankly appalling acting from almost everyone. Newman stands head an shoulders above the others, but even he looks uncomfortable the whole way through as cliché is piled on cliché. Do you know, the climax is an interminable crossing a wooden bridge over a lava flow with people falling through slats and every other predictable event you can imagine. But the funniest moment is after that when the survivors are in a cave and one of the female bit parts is standing there as if she's at a cocktail party. They must have all have been giving up by then.

jayraskin People seem to want to exaggerate how bad this is. They leave out a number of good points and just concentrate on the faults. The good points are the number of actors. Paul Newman, James Franciscus, William Holden, Barbara Carrera, Veronica Hamel and Jacqueline Bisset look great and give nice, professional performances. Several of the scenes are quite well done - the striking oil scene, the tidal wave, the helicopter rescue and destruction scene, and the crossing the bridge scene near the end.There are a couple of poor scenes that do hurt the film overall. The descent into the volcano scene is a bit ridiculous and the climatic hotel destruction scene is very disappointing. One has to believe that the money ran out for the special effects at that point. Another major problem is the casting of Ernest Borgnine and a Shelley Winter's lookalike (Sheila Allen). It keeps making you think about "the Poseidon Adventure," whenever they're on screen. I saw the 109 minute DVD version. I would really like to see the longer version. There are too many flaws to call this a good movie, but it is generally entertaining. Paul Newman was 55 at the time of this movie. It is the last film where Newman really plays a young stud romantic hero. After this he would brilliantly portray father figures and more character-type roles. He still looks terrific. For that reason alone the film is worth watching. Veronica Hamel, Valentina Cortessa and Barabara Carrera look absolutely stunning in their five minutes of screen time.