Review – The China Syndrome

Okay, wait. I’m still not quite clear. Are you saying that nuclear power plants are a bad idea? Yeesh, this thing is heavy-handed, even for 1979. We’ve got the whole post-Watergate cliché parade here: the crusading journalists, the guilt-ridden whistle-blower, the evil corporation that cares nothing for human life, sinister attempts to hide the truth no matter what the cost, and so on. The days of Barbarella are clearly well behind Jane Fonda now, though she almost takes a back seat to costar Michael Douglas in the liberal fanatic department. And Douglas is a bit of a surprise; I would never have guessed that he was as annoying when he was young as he is now. More so, if such a thing is possible, because throughout the picture he keeps saying “nucular.” The only sympathetic character in the whole movie is the power plant employee (Jack Lemmon) who discovers that his employer has put millions of people in jeopardy just to save a few bucks on construction costs. This might have turned out to be a total footnote even in its own sub-genre if not for the Three Mile Island incident proving the dumb story oddly prescient. Mildly amusing