Massive Retaliation is your every day, average five-star movie. The beginning starts out great, but then quickly goes downhill. Massive Retaliation is about a group of survivalists that retreat to their camp after the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Gulf of Oman. Their children were supposed to come up earlier in the day, but when they find the bunk-houses empty panic starts to set in. As urban areas in the U.S. are evacuated tension increases. The movie was made in 1984, but the styles of clothes and music looked like they were left over from the late 70's. If you're really interested in the nuclear topic you should see Massive Retaliation. But, be forewarned, there is only one nuclear event reported on a TV news program. No big nuclear explosions in this one.
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nukeman13 September 1999
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gulchu20 February 2022Massive disappointment with this one. I was hoping to see a massive retaliation and saw a minor skirmish. I wouldn't waste my time with this one, not your typical 1980s nuclear war flick, or lack of.
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binnione18 August 2003*(SOME SPOILERS!)*
This film is one of the slew of nuclear films which seemed to be regular staples at the video shop in the 80s. It's nowhere near as bad as drivel like Legend of the Rollerblade 7 or Hell Comes to Frogtown, but it's still doesn't come close to the quality of films like Miracle Mile or the very serious films Threads and The Day After.
Avoiding the common 'fight for survival after the bomb' trap it starts in a reasonably promising fashion. A group of neighbours plan a weekend away at their rural retreat, but just before they're due to set off an international crisis sparks fears of a full scale nuclear war. Lucky for them they are survivalists and their holiday home contains enough supplies and firepower to get them through the crisis. For about 40 minutes the tension is built up reasonably well and all the hints about which characters are going to turn into cliched survivalist nuts are done pretty well. Then suddenly it all starts to descend into cliche and platitudes - the final scene is a terrible cliche and anti-climax: The war is averted, but the groups of armed nuts won't believe it and continue to fight - this is only halted by a group of children linking arms to surround one group of adults and bring the shooting to an end. It's a pretty awful ending after a vaguely promising start. That said, they are numerous worse nuclear films than this one. If you want to see this done better and much earlier, check out Ray Milland's 1962 film 'Panic in the Year Zero' which has an almost identical plot but is so so much better. -
revsolly6 June 2005When I saw this movie, I couldn't believe that any self-respecting producer would waste the money. The action is silly. The youth of the movie are portrayed as smart-mouth and not worth the saving (an outgrowth of the scriptwriter's own view of children). The cast list tells you all you need to know when you see Peter Donat, Jason Gedrick and Bob Goldthwait all in the same movie.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the portrayal of the survivalists. It is typical of Hollywood's view of people other than those in their own inner circle.
If you must see a nuclear disaster movie, this is not it. You'd be much better off seeing "Miracle Mile" with Anthony Edwards, or "On the Beach". -
ShillingSide24 March 2018I saw this in passing and thought "How did I miss THAT one?" I've seen great movies on the topic - Threads (amazing), Testament, even the cliche The Day After... so it seemed a treat to find this.
Boy was I wrong. After "meeting" all the characters, I wanted the bombs or the radiation to win. Every single character - kids included - is repellent and detestable. Seriously, I wished I had pompoms and a "Go Nukes Go!" T-shirt on.
The beginning is a lot of unlikable people all hearing news about an impending war with the Soviet Union in the Gulf. SUPPOSEDLY they're all in some sort of "Nuclear War Survival Club" or something, but it's clear from the get-go none of them have a clue what that means. They actually think that "KEEP OUT" signs are a good first defense. Then they have their entire system based on a computer (apparently EMPs were unknown then and TRS-80s with thousands of disks were thought to be Pentagon-esque).
Cliches galore. Rednecks, non-veteran leader with delusions he's a general... at the first news report of explosions in the gulf - DAYS before the EBS goes on - the rednecks start to rape & pillage. News reports talk about "random looting" but everyone is evacuating in an orderly, nonchalant manner.
I won't go into every sordid detail. it's just drekscheisse. THREE OUTSTANDINGLY AWFUL THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR: The "comic relief" buddy. Bobcat Goldthwaite. The kids at the end holding hands & surrounding a dead man after saying how much they hate war. Yes, it's THAT excrementally bad.
Get some drinks, snacks, and snarky friends & have a Riff Party for this dog. -
This movie looks like one of those sorry, good for nothing, embarrassing YT movies grown-up minors make nowadays, who play director and play actor. That goes for the script if there even ever was one, because it seems like the actors just came up with the lines as they were filming and that goes for the equally horrendous video cam quality, which looks like someone simply used a 1984 camcorder and then these grown up people came together and decided let's act like little kids and make our own movie using $50 as our budget. That's what I thought at first, before I started realizing that the movie is full of famous 80s actors. How the heck they got conned into signing up for this is beyond me. It is utterly shocking to see these famous actors playing in a movie that seems to have literally a budget of $50. Therefore, after realizing who is in the movie, I give it 10 stars because it is unbelievable that they had the gall to publish this and it is as though someone foresaw yt amateur movies 3 decades in advance and therefore this is so exceptional it must receive 10 stars. I still can't believe this actually exists.
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silikonchips16 May 2021This is astonishingly bad. The Wikipedia says this is similar to a twilight zone episode, but I think it's like some of the first atomic bomb movies of the early 50s.
But those early movies were made when nukes were new and the ramifications of using them weren't fully thought out.
It may or may not be "so bad it's good" territory, but it might be worth watching to see several familiar faces.
The title of the movie seems rather sophomoric and hardly suggests the content. Pretty likely the studio or distributor or whoever were well aware it's a total turkey and slapped on a name that might generate interest. -
EyeAskance24 May 2008A group of survivalists hole-up in a backwoods cabin, braced for an impending nuclear attack. Meanwhile, their children are trying desperately to join them, facing car troubles along the way.
There are plenty of nuclear war films out there...put this one at the bottom of your "see list". This poorly written low-budget film strives for the same subdued bleakness that made TESTAMENT a powerful experience...the result is a dull soap opera of tawdry interpersonal dilemmas with a World War III back-story. With subject matter as serious as this, MASSIVE RETALIATION should be a rough punch in the gut...sadly, it just tickles your ass with a feather.
3.5/10 - not recommended. -
fathom-521 September 2005This is no better than Testament, The Day After, or Time of The Wolf. It's just too quiet, too detached from the horror that one might expect from a film revolving around the mass-detonation of atomic weaponry. The weight of the events is turned gooey, trivial, almost into a soap-opera style drama. Try as actors might, "imagining the unimaginable" (as it's often called) leaves the viewer uneasy at worst. The reporter that traveled to Hiroshima right after the a-bomb was dropped - he was not left uneasy. He was horrified, beside himself with grief and sorrow. Those are the emotions a film on this topic should attempt to evoke. Sadly, Massive Retaliation wimps out like many before and after it. One is invariably led to wonder the reasons this abnormal structure has proved the prevalent one. Why is it, that whenever anyone wants to make a nuclear war film, and get it taken seriously, it's turned into a character study? I can count on one hand the no-holds-barred, "thermonuclear war is not pretty" type of films that have been widely distributed across America. I guess when "The China Syndrome" predicted 3 Mile Island and changed millions of minds regarding nuclear power, the secret was out: to keep making missiles and subs and bombers, don't put the "real deal" in front of the people. Make them think that it will be a mild, slow, thoughtful and sad cancer-type death. Showing the real thing, the eyeball exploding, blood boiling out every hole, organs exploding, teeth melting, ocean boiling, mountain-leveling finality of all life on earth for thousands of years thing would just upset everyone too much. Afraid, but not rioting out of sheer panic - that's the optimum mood. Trauma is not conducive to apathetic behavior, and that's what the death-merchants need from the civilian sector. Hence, the oddly maudlin nature of our mainstream nuclear Armageddon movies. What a sorry excuse for consciousness-raising fare, this tripe known as Massive Retalitation.