CAT. 8: Wenn die Erde verglüht ...

Out of the four mini-series personally viewed in the past two weeks airing on the SyFy channel, CAT.8 is better than Ring of Fire(though at least that had Terry O'Quinn) and especially the irredeemably terrible Meteor with Christopher Lloyd. But of the four the best was Eve of Destruction, although that was a long way from great that looked reasonably good and at least four of the actors were convincing. CAT.8 also has some better-than-average acting, Matthew Modine is a commendable lead, and the production values(apart from some hokey effects) are reasonable, basic though with some signs of atmospheric. On the whole however CAT.8 doesn't work. What really lets things down is the story and the science. To say that the science is questionable is an understatement in itself, if anything it is a disaster, so bad that experts would feel tempted to bail out halfway through the first half. It honestly sounded like the writers were making things up with no research and it was very difficult to believe any of it. As a result the story was implausible and had little if any credibility. Unfortunately also for the story it didn't feel enough to sustain the three hours, so it felt like a thin structure interwoven with a lot of padding, ham-fisted melodrama/exposition, underdeveloped sub-plotting and an overlong length. If you think the first half takes too long to get going and is implausible, wait until you see the second half, like with the Meteor, Ring of Fire and even Eve of Destruction it gets increasingly dull and illogical. The script is underwritten, cheesy and very awkward, another one of those instances where it came through clearly that the writers hadn't properly checked to see whether what they'd written and given the actors made sense. The music is turgid and unmemorable, the pacing is pedestrian and stretches the story out too much, the characters are nowhere near developed enough which is inexcusable for a mini-series of this length and generally CAT.8 feels under-directed and characterless. On the whole, there is worse out there but this was rather poor stuff, the best assets are the production values and the acting but the story, script, pacing and especially the science bog things down considerably. 3/10 Bethany Cox

As I sat down here in 2023 to watch the 2013 disaster movie "CAT. 8", I had actually never heard about the movie, and thus obviously never seen it either. And with it being a disaster movie, of course I was interested in watching it, though I harbored little expectations to the movie, as the majority of disaster movies turn out to be exactly that; disasters.

The storyline in "CAT. 8"m as written by Donald Martin, was actually entertaining enough for what it was. Sure, it was a pretty straight forward, and thus also generic, disaster movie. I mean, you know the outcome of the movie from the moment you start the movie. But the ride from start to end was actually enjoyable for what it turned out to be. Don't expect writer Donald Martin to deliver anything that revolutionize the disaster movie genre, because that was far from the case here.

The acting performances in "CAT. 8" were okay. I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list, aside from leading actor Matthew Modine. But I will say that the cast generally put on adequate performances for a movie such as this.

Directors Kevin Fair and Sophie Boyer brought a fair enough movie to the screen, as it is simply a lean-back-in-the-seat-munch-on-the-snacks-and-enjoy-the-ride type of movie. You know what you get here, but the movie proved entertaining nonetheless.

The ending of the movie was predictable, oh so very, very predictable. And that is something I loathe about disaster movies; how a small group of people always manage to pull through insurmountable odds and come out on the other side and save our world when everything seems doomed.

Watchable for what it was "CAT. 8" lands on a five out of ten stars rating from me.

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.

Seeing is believing: hilarious version of Thunderbirds with a team of wooden actors led by a defunct Modine (b. 1959, here with dyed hair) taking the place of the puppets (alas, without Penelope). In this cardboard effort even the interiors and set-designs were lost for words, as were the prozac-fuelled out-of-work white actors pissed as hell that all the decent movies are packed with African Americans professionals and this was their last shot, because they had promised to take their kids to Legoland. Rarely was so little owed to so few for so much, as Winston might have said between cigars and whiskey. But let's dispense with the words, since the Americans' language is one of bullets: Shoot 'em up, Scotty! Thank heavens we can always rely on the USA to save the entire frigging planet, while joining up all of humanity in a chorus of unity, right? This movie is so inept it really deserves 10 stars.

I agree completely with Ed Blackadder's review. Why is it so very difficult for the writers of scripts that pretend to be "science" fiction to ask even a serious amateur science enthusiast to review their scripts (I'd do it for free) to catch their innumerable errors and misrepresentations of natural phenomenon? Did the writers of this bad joke sleep through their grade school and high school science classes? Apparently. And they must also believe that everyone else did, too.

If you are a SCIENCE fiction fan, you'll want to skip this one unless you want to watch for a few laughs. However, that probably won't hold you through the entire show. I stopped watching to write this after the hilariously wrong satellite sequence about 20 minutes in. Gawd...