Zodiac: Die Zeichen der Apokalypse

I've been a professor, chair, director & partner. Yet I had a phase of reading & enjoying Mills & Boon books and I enjoyed doing so. Watching Apocalypse Tomorrow (Sky Sci-fi) just now, it's fair to say there's a whole genre of TV movie that is as beyond criticism as Mills & Boon is. This film and others like it are the scifi equivalent of Mills & Boon. Formulaic, cheap, predictable, knocked out as a script over a latte at Starbucks. Yet why not? There's room for low art like this.

Criticising these films is as pointless as criticising Mills and Boon as literature. Pretty girls and guys, heroes and villains, mcguffins aplenty and cameos for one vaguely recognisable scifi genre face. Added to the often preposterous plot (one man links the zodiac to world ending events and only he sees it) these films are just the TV equivalent of.fast food. Enjoy the burger and move on.

Disaster movie: The Earth is threatened by a coming apocalypse foretold by the signs of the Zodiac.. or something.

Starting with something good, the flow of the movie is good, and the cameramen avoid many of the mistakes that many other B-movies commit. The scenery of is also very pretty.

Now for the far worse: Since it's a disaster movie, it relies on special effects, as most of this stripe do. Most of these effects are poor to a degree where special effects of mediocre 80's movies are on part with them. Once I burst out laughing because it was so bad.

It's likewise clear that the movie was shot largely in the same spot, giving the impression of someone trying to do an action movie in their back garden. I addition to this, some of the transitions from one location to another are so marked, that they defy belief. Silly! The only significant plus in the grade book of this movie is that the acting performances are good. These actors' delivery is however let down by poor scriptwriting and poor directing; in several scenes the director should have done things markedly different, which would have improved both flow and feel of the movie.

What drags the movie down additionally is the lack of additional cast and stand-ins, which hampers the movie's feel SEVERELY. Its hard to believe that they went ahead and got this movie written, picked locations, filmed and fx'd up, and they didn't spend a bit more and more people in the various locations where it was shot.

I'm guessing that the production budget came from the product placement funds. Such a pity, with a bit more money thrown at it, and more attention to detail, it could have been significantly better. This is not a turkey, but had the acting been worse, it certainly would have been! Oh and lastly, MARTY! Where are we going to get 1.21 Jiggawatts??!

I give credit to the director for trying but don't expect much. The storyline is like any other disaster movie, only difference is how the disasters come about. The special effects are terrible and you can see clearly they are computerized and transfered - hardly believable. Some of the characters got under your skin, and Christopher LLoyd - maybe it 's his age but a disappointment from his days in Back To The Future. The actors did do a nice job carrying the movie but the special effects just didn't seem to help it - in fact it made you cringe at the way some of the effects appeared. A made for TV film for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Watched this movie while on my exercise bike and I am not sure what was more painful - my burning thighs or my burning eyes. Signs of why it should be called DISASTER! - Signs of the coming poo storm

1. The whole movie looks like it was shot in rural Canada - you want me to believe you are in Peru try not have Canadian Pine trees in the scene behind you.

2. The graphics were rendered by Community College students.

3.The actors and actresses all play typical one dimensional characters. Teenage soon - aggressive hates his Dad, Dad loves his son but can't communicate to him.

4. Roping in Christopher Lioyd to play none other than a scientist - and a drunk one at that! I reckon he was really drunk for the roll once he realized what a crap movie he was on. Oh the things we do to pay the bills dear Christoper.

5. Plot holes filled with poo

6. The so called Dept of Defense unit act as though they are managing an order at McDonalds.

7. Car out runs a tsunami!!!!!

8 The Dept of Defense leader goes in ALONE!? in the final showdown and tells the heli piolt to f off like he is some badass then he proceeds to fight like a school kid. While the main lead scientist who is suppose to be a big nerd seems to fight like he was a pro wrestler when the time comes for it.

9. Most "events" involve using giant fans to blow lots of dirt around - waiting for when poo would hit the fan. Tornado can suck up a woman but cant lift a truck or anything around them..

10. Syfy channel funding.

I can see the ambition but its better to pool some more money to make a better movie (please spend more money on FX) than produce little poo storms :-)

There is a scene where they threw in a saying from Back to the Future "Great Scott" Dr Emmitt Brown says this on the classic "Back to the Future"I think the actors all knew this was one big joke of a movie and where to busy trying to impress Christopher Lloyd than worry about the poo storm of a movie they were on.

Worst special effects ever and most clichés in the book. OK so its a made for TV movie but there are some standards worth adhering to like plausibility for example yes even in a fantasy. You immediately feel sorry for Neil Martin (Joel Gretsch) that he's the father of the dumbest most self satisfied... (My University professor dad is so stupid) ...half wit in the land. A boy, Colin Martin (Reilly Dolman) with so little intuition or empathy, not to mention an annoying smirk of self satisfaction that right the first moment you are hoping he gets struck by lightening. Also this thing of the characters watching as a disaster rolls towards them when you are screaming "Run, run you dumb... 'chappie, fellows...' (you know what I mean)" is so insulting to the intelligence. Yes I can understand people freezing and dying on the spot but not almost dying because they are just too dumb to move, especially as one is a professor, "Ooh look Cleetus, duh there's a big bolder coming down from duh sky and its going to hit us if we don't duh move!" The boy rubbishes the father's every theory and suggestion. He needs a good slap!. This kid was serving coffee from a stall at the beginning of the movie with no apparent understanding of science. "Plausibility?" You'd think that the father would have had a smarter son, unless of course he was doing booze and smoking grass in his younger child creating days or at least mom was. Meanwhile they've acquired a girl called Sophie (Andrea Brooks) also a scientist... kind of, and during a chase scene, between her and the boy, they run through a gamut of hysterical physical emotions that would take most movies two hours to justify. Anyway the plot rumbles on using every cliché in the book, narrow escapes, implausibly long fights and a member of the CIA in a helicopter so small he could only just fit next to the pilot. The CIA running out of cash? Perhaps the production company was. Just what Christopher Lloyd is doing in this movie is anybody's guess, still I did enjoy his ten minutes (or thereabouts). My favourite scene in the whole thing is the very last scene, the tying up of loose ends where Joel Gretsch makes a speech to camera meanwhile behind him, his son and the girl who have shown virtually no interest in each other, suddenly make meaningful eye contact - if you know what I mean - and go into an immediate embrace behind him thrusting their tongues down each other's throats. THAT had me rolling in the aisles. Truth be told, it was a lousy script and a tight budget that did for this movie..... in my opinion.