Doomsday Prophecy

I don't know if SciFi had any involvemnt, but it's akin those end-of-world flicks. I happen to really like Jewel Staite, so I may have overrated it. It's a cookie cutter plot with the scientist and civilian that are vested with saving the world. They face uncertainly, lack of direction, and in surmountable odds in saving the Earth. Plus there are misguided ,malicious and powerful elements in the US Govt bent on stopping them. David and Goliath repeat. Production quality is par for the course for a TV movie, but finesse elements like score, special effects are on a meager budget. But they pull it off to make it watchable, at least for me. And of course, I get to watch Jewel.

...with neither a whimper nor a bang but another absurdly bad movie. Actually it starts reasonably well and has some effective special effects. But it spirals downward pretty quickly, yet another repeat of the now standard Armageddon formula that has been done endless times...world faces threat (alien invasion... epidemic...giant meteor...alien invaders...killer bees...take your choice. In this case it's earthquakes.) Young guy, helped by sexy girl friend, fights his bosses to save the world...and they all live happily ever after, at least until the next sci-fi turkey. This is a Canadian movie but the good guys are all Americans. Rather than some genuine high-tech suspense, we get clichéd car chases and gun fights like some two bit white hat vs. black hat pot-boiler. (Hey guys... this is the end of the world we're talking about here. Use some imagination!!!) The Canadian producers either didn't know or decided to ignore the fact that American lawmen and military personnel cannot operate in Canada with impunity as they do here. Not quite bad enough to be good. But still pretty awful.

When I sat down here in 2024 to watch the 2011 movie "Doomsday Prophecy", I must admit that I wasn't really harboring much of any grand expectations to the movie. With it being a disaster movie of sorts that I had never heard about, I just didn't really believe that I would be in for a grand piece of cinematic history. Nor was the 3.9 rating on IMDb hinting towards a grand piece of cinematic history.

However, with "Doomsday Prophecy" being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and give writers Jason Bourque and Shawn Linden's 2011 movie the benefit of the doubt.

And within the first 5 minutes of the movie, it becomes abundantly clear just what type of natural disaster movie that this would be. A super generic one. There was a large fissure opening up in the ground, expanding exponentially, and oddly enough following straight after the vehicle wherein one of the main characters was sitting. Those types of movies are just ludicrous, especially when they could just have veered to the right and have been out of harms way instantly.

Writers Jason Bourque and Shawn Linden put together a somewhat generic script and storyline. Sure, it was watchable and sort of entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. But I have to say that the supernatural elements with the future predicting rod was just a tad out of place and added a laughable element to the movie that just took away from the already slight sense of realism that the movie had going for it. And I am pretty sure that if massive chunks of USA got destroyed, a big part of China as well, and all of Italy and most of Greece was sunk into the ocean, then there would be a worldwide state of panic, and people wouldn't be out on the streets frolicking and going about with their daily cheery lives, as they did in this movie. It just made zero sense.

Needless to say that the outcome of events and ending of the movie was just fully and wholly laughable and unrealistic.

There were a couple of familiar faces on the cast list, and that was Hiro Kanagawa, Jewel Staite, Matthew Walker and Jerry Wasserman. So yeah, "Doomsday Prophecy" wasn't exactly a star-filled feature. However, I will say that the acting performances throughout the course of the movie were actually fair.

Visually then "Doomsday Prophecy" was okay. I mean, it wasn't the best of CGI effects, nor were it among some of the worst I've seen in disaster movies. Sure, it was pretty terrible CGI here, but there are disaster movies with far worse CGI. So at least that counted for something.

Semi-watchable a single time, but you're not in for anything memorable or particularly outstanding here. And the ending to the movie was just a slap to the face of anyone who had spent 92 minutes sitting through the movie.

My rating of "Doomsday Prophecy", from director Jason Bourque, lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

I say this as somebody who dislikes a vast majority of SyFy's movies. Doomsday Prophecy actually did seem interesting in its idea, but I also approached it in trepidation in fear that it would be another Titanic II, Quantum Apocalypse, Alien vs. Hunter, Almighty Thor or 2010: Moby Dick. In my opinion though, although it is far from perfect or even brilliant, Doomsday Prophecy is one of their more tolerable efforts.

There is some cheesy dialogue, some of the supporting characters could have been better developed and some of the effects like with the ground cracking are rather cheap. The story is also uneven for me. The film does start off promisingly and for a while unlike some SyFy movies actually feels as though there is a story and an original one at that plus it is paced reasonably, but it does meander with a silly subplot involving some shady characters and few scenes that feel like filler rather than serving purpose to the story and an ending that feels rather rushed and abrupt.

On the other hand, the scenery is quite good and the editing and photography are an improvement over most SyFy efforts, not looking as slipshod as something like Titanic II, Mega Piranha or Dinocroc vs Supergator. The music is adequate even if nothing stands out as such and the sound is more authentic than some of the bizarre or misplaced sound effects I've heard in past SyFy movies. While there are some underdeveloped support characters, the leads are somewhat likable especially the protagonist. The cameos are decent and AJ Buckley is solid, but the best thing about Doomsday Prophecy is easily Jewel Staite, she looks very natural and gives her character a lot of charm and wide-eyed innocence.

All in all, not bad, not good, just a tolerable enough if not exceptional in any shape or form to spend a couple of hours or so with. 5/10 Bethany Cox

In northern Bulgaria, researchers are puzzled by a strange series of "earthquake clusters." They are more dead than puzzled when an earthquake strikes their own little group. Over in New York City, publishing house proofreader A.J. Buckley (as Eric Fox) discusses a doomsday prophecy just before an earthquake strikes. Up in Mount Rainier, Washington, blonde archaeologist Jewel Staite (as Brooke Calvin) pooh-poohs prophecy. She is in for a rude awakening. It appears as if Armageddon is underway. Because they are the co-stars, Mr. Buckley and Ms. Staite are meant to team-up and save the planet. If they don't, the planet may not be saved...

The otherworldly villain is a "Dark Star" with powers like a black hole. In reality, the world would end quickly and without fake earthquakes. Buckley and Staite are assisted by a magic rod given to Buckley. The magic rod enables him to see into the future – in a story about the end of the world, seeing the future is always encouraging. They meet wise old Native American Indian Gordon Tootoosis (as John). Interesting how Indians began their movie career as savages out to rape white women and now appear as helpful elders with near supernatural wisdom. The mission is to find some magical statues. "Doomsday Prophesy" is sheer nonsense.

** Doomsday Prophecy (8/13/11) Jason Bourque ~ A.J. Buckley, Jewel Staite, Bruce Ramsay, Alan Dale