peter-65-895317
In addition to all the scientific malarkey discussed previously....the script is infantile, amateurish......can I be more direct.Where do they find these writers? The concept had a lot of potential as a real good suspense drama...but they had to put in lines like "it's really deep"...about the chasm. And the world is about to end but Mathew M and his partner scientist spend time re-connecting.....wow!!!An elite task force with automatic weapons is held off by two citizens with handguns. I know that they likely did not have the $ that a series like "24" has, but lord have mercy it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put together a realistic, mature screenplay. I could go on and on about the silliness of the script but I'm too ticked off about a potentially good story being wasted away by such infantile dialog and situations. Simply infantile!!
PanoactionImagineer
Its a shame someone like Mathew Modine was suckered into this. He is good as usual at keeping a solid character portrayal but thats where it all ends. After that this is probably one of the hardest things I have ever made myself watch. A real lousy implementation of VFX. The fact that his partner did not complain to someone is totally unreal. Let us not forget of course the complete misrepresentation of scientific fact. Finally what happened to the payback against secretary of defense and his sidekick. The ending is a complete let down. Who ever funded this must be regretting it now! Don't waist your time unless you wan to see how not to make a sci-fi. This is more like a bad drama.
Warloq
At the outset, let it be understood that there is virtually no suspension of disbelief to be found in this sci-fi folly.Science, and science fiction fans more importantly, understand that some scientific capital must be invested in a science fiction narrative to make it at least partially believable. No such investment occurred here, and therein lies the beginning of a bailout that never happened.The absence of suspension of disbelief is well supported. There clearly was a vulgar absence of scientific research within the arena's of the scientific disciplines upon which the (weak) foundation of this cinematic effort was based.Enough of this. Sci-fi fans of any stripe will understand the elements that are lacking. And that would be all of them. Satellites falling from orbit to impact Earth within MINUTES of critical solar events? International Space Station hitting the Earth and delivering an impact equivalent to the destruction delivered by hundreds of megatons of nuclear bombs? The I.S.S. is pretty much comprised of what amounts to little more than aluminum foil. The electro-magnetic effects of solar events assailing the Earth in mere seconds?It's hard not to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of these film elements. Oh wait. I did laugh. Out loud.The acting was careless and amateurish at best. Even veteran actor Matthew Modine delivered a performance that was stiff and over-rehearsed. The characters of the President and Vice President of the United States were just plain spooky and damned creepy. Personally, I feel the characters of the Prez and the Veep required lobotomies. That may seem a radical concept, but they *are* playing US politicians -- the majority of whom have already been lobotomized, I'd venture to guess. If you watch this film to its conclusion, I have the contact number for Lobotomies-R-Us.
bigal_a
I watched this film yesterday with queasy disbelief. The simple fact is that nothing - but nothing - can fly between the earth and the sun in less than 8 minutes.That isn't susceptible to "as far as we know", either. It is the basis of one of the most tested, verified and successful scientific theories of all time.Even if a massive CME had been caused immediately by the incoming glittery beam of science-stuff, it could not have reached the earth in less than 16 minutes. And the sun is so big that like a big container ship, it doesn't exactly turn on a sixpence. By the time anything happened, the affected part of the sun would have turned away from the earth, and the CME would have missed.I would have had a lot more respect if there had been an "omigod" moment and a prediction that something nasty was coming in, say, 24 hours, and the film wouldn't have had to run for 24 hours to show it either.This is only one little point in a film I begrudge having spent the time to watch it. IMO it is a turd sandwich with really thin slices of bread either side.Saying, "hey, it's just SCIENCE FICTION, Negative Nancy" does not relieve the film of the responsibility to have at least one foot planted firmly in plausibility. They could have done this properly at no greater cost, with no impact on the story, and I would have given them kudos for having done so.No plausibility, no kudos. This film's nonsensical trashing of the scientific method does not render it any the more entertaining. It's just sloppy, rushed-looking and tedious.I shan't be watching it again.
AD
