[2] According to critic Elaine Martin, author of the scholarly article "Rewrites and Remakes: Screen Adaptations of Romantic Works," the film director "erases the uncanny aspect of Kleist's tale and replaces it with a socio-political explanation" and intended to politicize the earthquake narrative's context in a higher degree compared to the original work.

"[2] In addition Sanders-Brahms removed the nineteenth century Prussia context, what Martin calls "the stage that represents Kleist's narrative filter.

[2] She further wrote that in the film Don Fernando is "a coolly calculating businessman, shaped by a bourgeois business mentality" instead of a "divine hero.

Narration at the opening sets the scene in a way that was dissatisfying to this reviewer [...] I felt that Earthquake in Chile made emotional demands on the audience without properly establishing an emotional attachment in the audience to those characters [...] Perhaps I missed the point, or the historical significance of this particular piece of German cinema, but the predictable storyline, in my estimation, ultimately falls a bit flat," though he nevertheless praised the fact that the "DVD sports a very high quality transfer.

"[4] Der Spiegel's critic Siegfried Schober's review made similar negative remarks.