Polar Storm

POLAR STORM is another in a never-ending line of incessantly rubbish disaster movies distributed by the Sy Fy Channel in America. As with the others, this one has far too low a budget to do justice to the sometimes-silly storyline, which involves a rogue comet sending the Earth's magnetic fields out of sync, causing all manner of electric storms and disturbance across the country.

Viewers of this particular genre will know what to expect by now and none of it is good. There are two plots, one involving a heroic scientist trying to figure out how to combat the storms, and the other involving his family trying to evade one of them. What it all boils down to is a whole deal of melodramatic overacting combined with a handful of ridiculous action scenes which seem to involve the same bad CGI effect over and over again of the ground cracking open. Even fans of disaster flicks will be hard pressed finding something to enjoy here.

It was fun watching this movie, as it shows how good, really good movies are difficult to make. In a world that surrounds itself with electronics, movie goers have become familiar with how all things electrical work. It's not good enough to come up with some bad science, illogical concepts or half hearted graphics to satisfy a savvy audience. If the Director can't afford good graphics, get good actors, can't afford good actors, write great dialogue, no great writing, choose beautiful scenery..... but don't combine the least of everything and expect to have a memorable product. Polar Storm is the perfect storm of all the worst that B movies possess. Now that I've unloaded on this half-hearted attempt at a Sci-Fi video romp, It has some redeeming features. Canadians watching this will recognize places they know, we get to see some newbies put in front of a camera and watch earth take a licking and keep on ticking. The best line , and perhaps the funniest ....when sonny shouts to Stepmom hanging on for dear life over a bottomless crevice...." Don't let go!" If you like to see what not to do as a Director, this is the movie for you.

This movie is along the lines of most Sci-Fi Channel movies, but definitely a tad better - mostly because it tackles a different theme (magnetic storms / polar shift) and has a good lead character.

The basic setup of the story is that a fragment of a comet has hit earth and strange electrical storms are popping up in multiple locations. There are two sub-stories: (1) a scientist (Jack Coleman from the TV series "Heroes") tries to warn the government that the storms are going to get worst, not better and (2) the scientist's son and wife are trying to escape an area hit by one of the storms.

One thing that's very impressive is that the story can be effectively told within the budgetary constraints typical to these types of movies. The filmmakers put just the right amount into effects (simple, but passable), locations (small towns/open roads) and the number of characters (very few) to make it work.

Furthermore, Jack Coleman and Holly Dignard (who plays his wife) are decently interesting to watch - so that helps. Both carry an air of seriousness that helps keep the atmosphere of the movie in urgency mode.

If you're sick of the channel's overused themes (mutant undead/rat/insect/etc.), then this is a step up from that. It's not really good or great, but if you're hunting for sci-fi on TV and nothing else is on ... might as well watch this.

I do dislike a vast majority of SyFy's films, though in all honesty I don't revel in tarnishing them no matter how much some of them deserve it. Polar Storm is not their worst, either The Apocalypse or Alien vs. Hunter, but it is down there. Visually, it looks alright at first, but then from the half-way mark to the end, the special effects look slapdash and done with no heart and the editing becomes increasingly half-hearted. The story is another problem, for its running time like I've said with a few SyFy movies it is very thin and the ending feels like a farce more than anything else and a very predictable one at that. The script is trite complete with illogical lapses and scientific factual errors, and the characters are clichéd and I didn't care for any of them, and my guess is the actors didn't either. And the acting was so wooden from across the board. Overall, as much as I liked the theme that they tried to tackle, Polar Storm is a mess. 1/10 Bethany Cox

As a Canadian, I can only say I am embarrassed and saddened that my country makes such total 100% garbage as this pathetic movie. One would think that after many years of major productions, we could come up with cinema that stands up with the rest of the world. But it's pretty obvious that our film business is a total joke. The sight of Vancouver's perennial DJ and Man-About-Town Terry David Mulligan dressed up as a General, is so utterly hilarious and totally absurd that it defies description. Everything about this movie STINKS. Story, acting, directing, special effects----you name it, on every level it's got to be one of the most God-awful pieces of junk ever.