Tempête de Météorites

SyFy movies are never going to win awards with their limited budgets and their hastily-written scripts, I realize that. Still, I think that if they had approached this project with some smarts, it could have been a decent time-killer. As it is now, it isn't. For a Canadian production, it looks decent (it doesn't have that "Canadian look"), but it still has a made-for-TV feel to the visuals, and the various British Columbia locations simply can't be passed off as San Francisco. Some of the special effects are okay, but they mostly look cheap and unconvincing, which is probably why long stretches of time go by between special effects shots. But it's the script that really sinks this movie. It's long and drawn out, which is why there is no feeling of tension, and the characters aren't really fleshed out enough. Director Tibor Takács has made some good movies in his career, but "Meteor Storm" is not one of them.

An astro-physicist is tapped by the government to figure out why the city of San Francisco is being besieged by anti-social meteorites. BB-sized pellets crash a meteor light show stargazing event, and victims run for cover. Immediately, scientists and the military team up to repel the onslaught.

Time out for obligatory clichés: Obnoxios dumbbell TV news crew getting in everybody's hair. General wants to nuke something. Hero guy is married to scientist, and they argue a lot. Their stupid brat kids blunder into perilous locations, always at the exact time and place meteors show up. Hero guy diverts from saving the world to rescue his idiot brat kids. The ratio of cliché stuff to actual plot elements is about 70% to 30%.

The pseudo-scientific ramblings about why San Fran is being singled out are actually pretty imaginative (although ludicrous). Acting is fair. Action and CGI are fair. 99% of the budget was invested in the 500th movie depiction of the collapse of the city's most famous structure. It's done in spectacular fashion; the film's blazing glory moment. But sloppy editing also gives you glaring goofs: like light traffic in the background of a scene, during a supposed massive evacuation of the Bay area. Some evac.

As cheaply done as it may be, it's amusing enough to make it entertaining.

Even the action flicks are becoming chick flicks. We have a hero with what looks like a 200 inch chest riding a motorcycle through out the film, and that just begins the clichés. Everything in the film is completely cliché. Not one fresh idea.

The plot is something about meteors showering the Earth, and some guy in the military being dense to the hero, who controls what everyone in the world thinks, by the way, and commands the attention of a news crew for no reason. A news crew that follows a hunk instead of the usual slouches that they choose 100% of the time. Yeah, what planet is this on? Director Tukacs not only dwells in every cliché, but also makes this unwatchable for guys. If there is a cute girl, he kills her off as quick as he can, leaving only the pale plain girls that women identify with, making this the ultimate chick flick.

Across the board, the acting is as poor as the directing, which lends one to think they were directed to act this horribly, and the worst takes kept for the final cut.

There is nothing good about this film, nothing exciting, nothing interesting, nothing to care about.

Of all the films I have seen of Syfy and on the Syfy channel, Meteor Storm is not one of the best, though I have yet to see a Syfy movie that I would deem good. But it is not as bad as Titanic II, Mega Piranha, Shark Attack and that Moby Dick movie they did. To be honest, Meteor Storm is nothing to rave about, but unlike the movies I have cited the acting while again not award-worthy was tolerable, particularly from Michael Trucco. The film is not visually stunning by any regard as the editing is rather slip-shod and the effects are largely inconsistent, but there are much cheaper productions out there. Despite these, there are a lot of things in this movie that I don't like about Syfy in general. A major problem is the plot, if I had to sum it up in one word, it would be nonsensical. The ideas put forward are somewhat imaginative and intriguing, but explained and executed ridiculously. The script is clichéd, illogical and just plain bad really, the characters are cardboard and I didn't really connect to them, the pace is uneven with a dull middle section and the less said about a vast majority of the direction the better. All in all, there have been worse, but this is not really something to savour on repeat viewings and such. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Before any one watches this movie they have to understand that it is a SyFy production, which means no academy awards, modest budgets, and fictitious science used to explain what is happening.

As a fan of the SyFy movies (mostly as they are the only regular source of science fiction on TV now days)I would have watched it regardless, but this film was a pleasant surprise.

The cast was surprisingly good based on the type of film, all science fiction regulars led by Battlestar alum Michael Trucco, Invasion and Covert Affairs beauty Kari Mitchell, Kyle XYs Kirsten Prout and Smallville and Flash Gordon star Eric Johnson, all of whom are playing to their strengths (eg Johnson as a cocky, arrogant reporter). All performed well, though Trucco was a little stiff.

A typical weakness in SyFy flicks are the CG effects. Fortunately, as the story really only called for meteors falling from the sky the cost would have been limited allowing for some generally decent effects. The first meteor storm was very well done.

Another typical weakness of SyFy films is the script/ dialogue. While there are some cheesy lines 'That might explain the Bay Area's historically bad cell phone service', there are some good lines too, my favourite being when Michelle is being asked to go with the army person who says 'Say yes while I'm still asking, Michelle'.

This is a decent flick for a wet Friday night. Certainly not a blockbuster, and there a holes in the plot and the science of the film, but if you can ignore them and just watch the movie as escapism and entertainment there are certainly worse films you could watch instead.