Arctic Blast

My "Summary" pretty much explains it all and my 6 star review is very generous. I only watched this movie because it was yet-to-be-reviewed on IMDb and because I have a... thing for Indiana Evans (Matilda from Home and Away). It's very similar to The Day After Tomorrow and sadly it's destined to drown in the shadows of Tomorrow When the War Began. Nevertheless it was nice to see a straight-to-DVD Aussie disaster movie that wasn't a total disaster.

The ozone layer lets us down and suddenly an icy gust manifests itself just south of Tasmania. It soon becomes a global concern when Tazzies turn up looking like a T-1000 drenched in liquid nitrogen. If only they'd listened to the guy who tried to warn them... blah blah... and his daughter is so hot... blah blah... and his boss is that rubber senator dude from X-men and he's not being very helpful... blah blah.

The acting is very "Home and Away on a Good Day", but I get the feeling that all the actors did the best they could with the wooden script. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they're Aussie's pretending to be American's or vice versa, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's a little splash of Kiwi and even Big Ben gets a wee bit nippy at one stage.

The more you like Aussie films, disaster films, mindless entertainment and/or Indiana Evans, the more you'll like this film. In a nutshell, the acting is okay, the concept is okay, the effects are okay and for all we know it could be the most prophetic movie ever made. If we all instantly freeze to death, I'll give it an extra star or 2. Needless to say that I strongly recommend it to Meteorologists from Hobart or Sydney.

Check out my IMDb List for some better suggestions. "HORROR/THRILLER: Obscure, Overlooked & Underrated" http://www.imdb.com/list/8QFZ78e4Ar8/

First of all, let me start by saying that 1 star is more generous than I'd like to be, however I'll award that one star for the comedy of errors.

Who did the research for this movie? Honestly - giving insulin to a person with low blood sugar (a dangerous thing for somebody to learn from a movie) and that complete nonsense about the mesosphere falling. I doubt if it was a school kid because they are generally more educated than this. It scored an F minus on the science.

The Australian accents were either fake or overdone. The direction was abysmal. What an embarrassment for the local emergency services to be involved in this movie.

The acting was high-school grade for the most part. They obviously had a couple of professional actors.

The special effects looked like something out of the old Batman TV series or Power Rangers.

To think that I paid money for this. It's honestly challenging the position of Santa Claus conquers the Martians as worst movie yet.

When it gets to the stage where you're laughing at how amateurish a movie is, it's just not worth it.

Solar eclipses are effecting the atmospheric layer causing a gigantic drop in temperatures. Jack Tate (Michael Shanks) leads a climate science team based in Hobart, Australia. Unbeknownst to them, their research ship gets flash frozen when a jet of cold air blast through the atmosphere. Jack is facing a divorce from his wife Emma and his daughter Namoi is not happy. He is shocked to see their ship run aground. Institute head Walter Winslaw (Bruce Davison) is reluctant to alarm the public. Jack can't get a warning out and he has to rescue his kid.

This is pulling from similar junk-science as "The Day After Tomorrow". The difference is that nobody cared about the science in that movie. It was just an excuse to see NYC get CGI destroyed by a tidal wave. There is no such fun in this movie. The CGI in this one is pretty weak. The other problem is the way the situation is solved. It is basically a lot of computer modeling. I do have to say that this is some of the best fake computer modeling around. :) The action is mostly badly conceived. When Jack gets to the beach, he should grab her kid and yell "RUN!" Instead, he spends time to explain science to the kids and stand around waiting for them. It's an opportunity to amp up the tension. He should be raving mad which would inject some excitement. Worst of all, Jack takes off in the middle of a world wide catastrophe to go to the drug store. It's a pretty bad TV movie.

My initial response to this film was unfairly snide, searching the lead actor's face in vain for simple change of expression. But although it took some time, I was finally able to find redeeming value in this tepid disaster film; this apparent new sub-genre of divorced dads winning back their families by saving them from natural disasters might have some worth if you take a drink every time you see someone on the phone. Of course having a character talk on the phone does not contribute any sense of urgency or suspense. In fact watching people talk on the phone in films is as annoying as watching them talk on the phone in real life - but this film is annoying enough to leave you falling down drunk. Three sips for speaker-phone, two sips for a headset, this film promises a good time.

"Easily one of the worst movies of all time. I'm understating it."

No disagreement here!!!

This is the quintessential "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (for everyone familiar with this alltime classic low budget scifi film) of disaster genre' films.

Every hackneyed cliché' that could possibly be imagined was tossed into this thing . . . sort of like a mental indigestion.

I can only imagine what was going on at the set while they were actually shooting film for this thing.

The actors and film crew must have been barely able to keep from constantly laughing as they attempted to say their lines and plod their way through these evermore, beyond ridiculous scenes.

Either that, or everyone must have been smoking "something" during this entire escapade.

Come to think of it, the behind the scenes, "the making of . . . " footage of this unintended comedy extraordinaire actually might have been truly entertaining to watch, certainly more interesting than the actual film itself.

Trust me on this one . . . do not spend any money, as in none, zero, nada to see this clunker, unless, of course, one has a particular fetish for exceedingly bad films.

OK, I kept this as polite and civil as possible.