Atomic Apocalypse

Two stars just for general idea and that is it. The plot does not make sense, seems like creators do not even have minimum knowledge about science nor have bothered to do homework. Very visible "low budget" type of filming as well. Watched till the end hoping for something, however, it was a total waste of time.

SUPERCOLLIDER is another silly SyFy Channel disaster movie about a Hadron collider going wrong and accidentally opening up another dimension which causes the Earth to be affected by all manner of natural and not-so-natural disasters. This is a Canadian production filmed in Bulgaria which gives you an idea of how cheap it is.

I've seen a lot of SyFy's disaster movies but this is definitely one of the cheapest and poorest-looking. I can think of absolutely no reason that any sane viewer would want to tune in and waste their time watching this. The characters are clichéd and the interactions between them are wooden and poorly staged. The special effects scenes consist of the actors looking on as a bad CGI effect plays out in the background or in the sky. There's never a moment of realism, drama, or excitement that convinces. The only actor I recognised was Amy Bailey, who played the British princess in VIKINGS, and she must wonder why she agreed to star in this junk.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this movie. It wasn't an amazing film or anything, but it was much better than I was expecting it to be. It was an interesting premise, but it DEFINITELY had a tiny budget, none of which was used on hiring great actors and very little of which was spent on anything approaching decent special effects. I'm pretty sure I could do a better greenscreen job using my cell phone and a tablecloth. That said, there were interesting aspects to the plot and the actors were better than your average middle school theater students. I gave it 3/5, largely for exceeding my expectations.

There's not a lot of great things to say about Supercollider, but the one big positive is the interesting subject matter. That said, this movie is not really what I expected. It is watchable, I didn't stray from the viewing or lose interest at any point. I really don't care for special effects: low budgets are of small concern but there were some holes in the script and some of the acting could've been better. Character development minimal and unsatisfactory. Still, it was put together well enough to hold my attention. I wish that they would have devoted a little more screen time explaining what happened or theorizing, but maybe that is part of the intrigue. Also, I have to say the timing of the love scene between Victor and Natalie seemed a bit awkward.

And we're not talking about quite bad, but very bad. There are three reasons why Supercollider isn't rated any lower. The concept is a good one, plus it doesn't feel as stereotypical as it could have been in comparison to other relatively similar disaster movies. There are moments of nice locations, and the music is a step above the generic, overbearing and ponderous music that you'd kind of expect from a movie in the genre that is low on budget, it's actually driven and atmospheric. The photography and editing can be choppy however, around the halfway mark there was some real sloppiness, one too many scenes were too darkly lit and the movie looked like too often that it was set in a refurnished basement. The script does suffer from clichéd writing- though thankfully not as badly as other movies seen recently, particularly on the SyFy channel- and it is never here the sort of writing that grabs you or stop you from rolling your eyes. A lot of it was stilted and ham-fisted. The story does have a twist and it wasn't completely predictable from start to finish. What it was though was very dull and by-the-numbers with no heart, fun or tension, everything just felt indifferent. To be honest, I was losing interest by the half-way mark but being the sort of person who never judges a film without seeing the whole of it stuck, with it. And the second half didn't improve, if anything it was the opposite. The direction is far too slack with no attempt to keep things tightly paced and taut. The characters are barely developed, charisma-free and just don't engage. The actors look as though they didn't want to be there or that they didn't care for what they'd been given. Robin Dunne especially gives an expressionless and one-note lead performance. So to conclude, not terrible but another movie that joins the long line of movies that had good ideas but bad execution. 3/10 Bethany Cox