Category 6: Day of Destruction

Okay, so I enjoy a romp through destruction now and then - I'll admit it, I'm a disaster movie fan. That is, when the movie is ABOUT a disaster, NOT when the movie itself IS a disaster - BIG DIFFERENCE! My husband and I almost turned this off after the first hour of the first night, but decided to stick it out to see some potentially cool special effects. Okay, we got those. And then we felt compelled to watch the conclusion on Wednesday. Sloooooooooow. Boooooooooring. Not to mention stupid! I was pretty willing to overlook the paper-thin characters, lame dialogue, and clichéd, disjointed plotting. I was even mildly willing to overlook the damage done to the anti-global-warming cause. But in a movie where obviously somebody had enough computer smarts to give a realistic facsimile of the St. Louis Arch twisting and shouting, why wasn't there an equally savvy computer geek on hand to EDIT OUT THE PALM TREES from the stock footage dubbed in as "hurricane hits Chicago?" HELLO ALL YOU ON THE WEST COAST - last time I checked, Chicago was still located in the Midwest (you know, that "fly-over" country that produces most of YOUR food???), and guess what? There are no palm trees in the Midwest. SURPRISE!

I'm a bit of a disaster movie junkie. I just can't miss a film, no matter how bad it looks to be, as long as it promises some kind of cinematic carnage. I've sat through 'Night of the Twisters,' survived 'Atomic Twister,' and laughed all the way through '10.5' But 'Category 6: Day of Destruction' hits new lows. The computer graphics were so poor as to be embarrassing even for what you'd expect from a 'made for television' piece of crap. But it was the onslaught of every cliché in the book that really got to me, from the adulterous husband, the weather man who feels guilt over a past failure, the evil corporate guy, and to top it all off they gives us the pregnant lady in an elevator schtick…I'm mean PLEASE!

With all that said I'me already set to record part two. It's possible that I need help, or maybe an intervention.

I'll admit that having heard all these negative things about this 2 part movie, that it wasn't all that bad. It certainly wasn't as bad as I had expected but it also really wasn't too much good either.

The movie is filled with many stupid silly plot-lines. They are so all formulaic that none of them offers any surprises. On top of that, the dialog in the movie is absolutely horrible. At times it even manages to become laughable. This is the sort of typical dramatic disaster movie that features many characters in it, of which none really ever work out as an interesting or engaging one.

This movie isn't about natural disasters, this is about people and their personal problems. Now is that anything new or interesting? I mean, I've I wanted to follow a story like this I would watch a soap opera in stead. It's the sort of mistake "Deep Impact" and disaster movies in general often make. The movie at times tries to put in morale in about the environment and global warming and such but all those things come across as forced and look silly because of that in the movie.

It seems to take for ever before the introduction and build-up in the story stops. There is a lot of talking about natural disasters but not enough of it gets actually shown on the screen. The movie is too long on its drama.

The use of news archive material of bad weather conditions and tornadoes is too obvious. It makes the movie seem even more cheap and silly.

There are some good actors in the movie but even they can't make the movie work out fully- or the dialog. Randy Quaid, Dianne Wiest and Brian Dennehy are no small time actors. Guess they also regret being in this, looking back at it.

But the movie does a good job at keeping the pace high, even though when nothing is happening. For a made for TV production this really wasn't all that bad. I mean, I have seen far worse attempts. The movie was overall good looking, despite of the weak and cheap special effects. But I don't really see what's the big deal about it, since the special effects get never featured that prominently in the movie. I therefor also feel that some of the negativity toward this movie is for most part unjustified. Not that it deserves raving criticism but its a decent attempt that does not bore but just becomes too silly and unlikely in parts.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Who directed this piece of crap and coerced such horrid performances from veteran actors? Is it just me or is Randy Quaid playing the same character he played in 'Independence Day'? The Dialogue is so laughable that I would rather the characters just didn't speak unless absolutely necessary because they have nothing worthwhile to say.

This movie surpasses 'The Day After Tomorrow' in the categories of "Tree Hugging" and "How Much Of My Political Agenda Can I Push On Other People?"

The plot is very weak. After two hours I am not concerned about the weather. Why is there anything with the power company in this movie. As if having power on when or even the couple of hours before the storm would have helped. You could not evacuate that many people in a few hours and if the storm was really that big the city would have lost power anyway. That whole part of the story line could and should have been omitted.

And what power company has no IT department but a single man that they contract work out to? PUH - LEASE!!!!!!!

Sort of like a train wreck, I had to watch this and part seven. Very goofy, but had some interesting yet predictable plot lines.

The whole message of this series (at least the two parts I watched) seemed to be that we humans are bad, bad creatures. According to what I gleaned from these two parts: We and we alone caused global warming, should recycle more, should stop driving and should stop using so much energy. And of course, all energy companies are evil.

A very preachy series! Oy!

Some of the plots were predicable. Like Chandra West and Thomas Gibson in their obvious extra-marital affair, crisis with family, resolve issues during weather disaster.

Randy Quaid was a hoot as he more or less did a reprise of his "Independence Day" role as a whacked-out misfit.

A lot of the special effects were repeated in both 6 & 7 (like a skyline view of Chicago then a skyline of Washington, D.C., with the same carnage in the foreground - or a repeat shot of a power plant, one in Chicago, one in D.C.).

I had to suspend disbelief as the time-line of many of these events and scenes defied logic.

Overall – poorly written storyline with average acting and quirky special effects.