Ice

Long before day After Tomorrow, there was ice in Los Angeles and the rest of the world. A group of intrepid Angelinos, including Audie England (Julie), made the trek to find a ship hoping to escape the cold.

Little did they know that the evil Dr. Kistler (Udo Kier) lied and the ship was only coming for him. Life does have a way of balancing things, and, with Julie's ex (Grant Show) leading the group, they manage to reach the pick-up point.

Will a ship arrive? Will Audie be saved from freezing? You have to tune in to find out.

The big surprise? This is the very first "made-for-cable" movie I have ever watched start-to-finish. Granted, there wasn't much else on the other 130 channels this particular evening, but these SciFi Channel productions are generally so tedious that I'm gone before the first commercial break. This turkey DID have a few redeeming features: an attractive (physically) cast; acceptable computer effects; and spritely pacing (for a Cable feature). Yes, I know the plot holes were far too frequent and there were far too many uncalled-for characters, but I'm a sucker for "end of the world" genre and this one was only marginally worse than Armageddon. 2 1/2 stars out of 5 (5 out of 5 stars for a SciFi Potboiler).

If not mistaken I think this is a Sci-Fi Network original. A story kind of silly, but provoking. Reality is doubtful. The earth becomes a deep freeze in a modern Ice Age after the sun develops numerous sunspots. Sunny California within two days looks more like the South Pole with frigid temps well below zero. LAPD officer Grant Show with the aid of a petty criminal(Flex Alexander)he recently put in jail leads a small group of people that includes his girlfriend, son, ex-wife and her recent husband to possible safety.

Joined by the scientist(Udo Kier),who discovered this catastrophe, the small group are hopeful to find safety near the Equator region which seems to be as far south as the frigid temps reach. Snow of course is the main scenery and tempts you to grab a blanket. For some reason my favorite scene is when The President(Art Hindle) is prompted to leave D.C., but only after respecting a painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware.

Also appearing are: Eva LaRue, Audie England and Diego Fuentes. Although the story line being quite contrived, ICE none the less is able to hold your interest. Grant Show is still as bland an actor as he was on TV's Melrose Place.

The movie was decent. We've seen these end of days, ice age flix before. This one was even better than some of those. Sunday afternoon with nothing pressing, it's a good watch.

I was actually impressed by this. It's nothing spectacular, of course, but it's better than a lot of stuff in the apocalyptic genre that makes it to the big screen. Well-paced, well-acted (although the characters are slightly annoying), and good FX; you can't ask for much more than that. Plus I found the idea of people in LA faced with an ice age amusing.

My main complaint is that the details of the weather change are abrasively inaccurate. I doubt any Hollywood person actually knows what cold weather is like. I had the same problems with the recent "Alien vs. Predator," where the characters apparently don't need anything more than a light jacket to stay warm and toasty in Antarctica. Here, we have people walking around in negative 60 degree weather without hats or gloves on, and they are perfectly fine (seriously, they'd be dead in five minutes). The thing that irritated me most was when two people came indoors after being outside in the frigid cold, obviously about to die, and yet they are still able to dexterously move their fingers. Give me a break. At that point they wouldn't even HAVE fingers.

Well, personal complaints aside, it's not a bad film, and I suppose it is a notable addition to the mediocre natural disaster genre.

6/10 stars.