Ice

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.

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.

I saw Ice on June 12, 2004. Shortly after that I started seeing ads for DAT. I thought maybe DAT was a remake. Was I ever wrong! 'Ice' is much more like a rough draft, and DAT the finished product. I had the pleasure of seeing DAT August 4, 2004. 'Ice' reminds me of the good old days of disaster films, like Poseidon Adventure. Very hokey and extremely low budget! Was PA actually low budget? Who knows? Who cares? It also seemed like 'Ice' had a mixed language cast, so some people were dubbed and some people spoke English. There seems to be some made for SciFi channel/ German connection. Maybe their actors don't charge as much?

Enjoyable to watch if you have really NOTHING better to do! 'Ice' should absolutely be included in any list of disaster movies if you are a disaster fan.

This made for the small screen movie in the disaster genre may have been full of questionable scientific facts but accepting things as you were given them, then the acting and general tempo were okay. There are some movies where it is best not to ask too many questions just sit back and be entertained - this was one of them. The lack of big star cast did not seem to detract from the effect and though clearly shot on a small budget (the snowflakes were so fake!) it was reasonable nonetheless.

A group of miscellaneous stereotypes, the white macho law enforcer, the black criminal with the chip on his shoulder who's not so bad once you get to know him, the mad professor who's not likable at all, the ex and the new lover with the new boyfriend. Plenty scope for character development, though much of it was predictable. As a huge freeze-up almost in no time seems to plunge Los Angeles into Arctic frigidity people seem to die frozen at the wheels of their cars or anywhere else as if completely unexpected. Our super-heros seem to be able to move around with relatively little extra clothing only the occasional leg wrapping or blanket as a token towards the predicament.

The general "plot" is that a rescue ship is being sent to pick up our disagreeable scientist and our group seem to think this is the best option they have of escaping from the freeze-up so a purpose and direction is created, however thin and questionable it may seem. We seem to accept much science fiction which is far more questionable, take the Star Wars nonsense for example, yet here we have a plausible scenario. The sun could throw a wobbly and the effects on our planet could be life-threatening, I have no problem with the subject matter. I would not buy the DVD however but have seen a lot worse than ICE.

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.