Doomsday Prophecy

Here again, I was looking forward tonight to watching a new disaster movie and with hopefully awesome special effects as in the movie 2012. Instead of spending money creating awesome special effects, the film makers chose instead to report various cities and countries' destruction via TV and radio special news reports. When NYC was destroyed, the few seconds of destruction were shown in a window's reflection! What a joke! The film makers instead used up the movie's time with idiotic and nothing but annoying car chases and shoot-outs, which were totally unnessary to the story. You can view better special effects by watching The Weather Channel's "It Could Happen Tomorrow"! If I had known, I wouldn't have wasted my time and I advise you not to waste your time with this stinker either!

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.

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

...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.

This is one of the most fun disasters "world is ending" movies. You may find yourself kibitzing and saying "stay in the car" but you will not be holding your nose with those hallmark knockoff disaster movies.

General Slate (Alan Dale) knows something we do not. What we do know is the world is coming to an end and we suspect that Eric Fox (AJ Buckley) a modern-day Nostradamus has a manuscript that will help us survive; he sends for a publisher to come and get it. Meantime he also sends for an archeologist. The invitees may find more than they planned.

They picked just the right actors for the particular characters. And we get some great shots of British Columbia.

The big question is will the mission succeed or be foiled at the last minute?

Be sure to watch the DVD Extra "The Stories Are True"