Meteoriti! - Paura dal cielo

No, those words weren't mine; a character actually said them. But it's my sentiment. This one gets a 5 because it averages out: about a 2 in scientific plausibility, but up around 8 on the amusement meter, because it's so ridiculous.

Evidently, an hours-long meteor shower decides to strike all in one spot, even though the Earth is a moving target. Some little southwestern town that is known for not meteors, but UFO visits. The daughter of the hero is crowned "Miss UFO," while his son is threatened in a home invasion by some punk with a gun. It gets sillier. Miss UFO is in a toy spacecraft, celebrating her great honor, when the meteorites decide to drop in. They always hit a target dead on, never missing anything. Two of the most sublimely idiotic hits are a human victim reduced to smoking shoes, and a truck winds up having a big hole in it.

Whatever the hero is doing, the meteorites decide to interfere. They blast a bridge two seconds before he uses it, they blast a mine two seconds before he hides in it etc. Rescues are always effected with the same magic two-seconds-to-spare margin; in one case the rescue comes just before the toy UFO plunges five feet to destruction.

Every natural disaster movie ploy ever known is cranked out for your laughter, and this movie is a must for fans of this kind of campy silliness.

Nothing outstanding or out of the ordinary about this TV movie. A small Arizona town is celebrating its annual UFO Festival, when Mother Nature provides a fiery display. Comets collide in space shooting meteorites toward earth. My favorite line in the whole movie is, "I treated that truck better than my ex-wife". The effects are pretty low tech. And the acting is predictable and flat. Cast members include:Tom Wopat, Roxanne Hart, Abby Meares and Mark Murphy.

This film has just been shown on TV on a Bank Holiday morning in the UK, and I think for that sort of occasion, it was just about right! Rather bland, nothing to frighten the children - an undemanding way to pass 90 minutes or so. I actually enjoyed it, though of course I was aware of the complete absurdity of the premise that the stream of meteorites constantly targeted this one small town in the back of beyond! I retain quite a fondness for Tom Wopat from watching Dukes of Hazzard all those years ago (I still like John Schneider too!). I loved Pato Hoffman as the native-American sheriff - what a gorgeous man, and his rapid healing must make him a very useful guy to have around - crushed leg one minute, barely limping the next! The teenagers were all much too pretty but no worse than your average disaster movie teens. All the 'scientific' bits were extremely low-tech, but then we've all been spoilt by the high-budget disaster films of recent years. Fairly dire script, but they did their best with it. Reasonably explosive SFX. Some very silly bits - loved the tabloid journalist getting his comeuppance!! All-in-all, quite watchable and really not as bad as some of these comments make it out to be! It didn't make any claims to be more than it was, and not every film made can win prizes, you know.

Meteorites is a classical USA movie that plays off of the alien reputation of Roswell, New Mexico and countless other commonly used B movie themes. In the movie, the town of Leroy is constantly bombarded by meteorites even though the chances of such an occurrence would almost be greater than the chances of finding a good movie in today's theatres! I believe that the same woman who played the mother in another USA movie, My Mother's Murder, is the central female figure in the movie.

Meteorites also has traces of Backdraft, Tremors, and many other "end of the world" movies. The most unbelievable aspect to this movie, like all other made for TV "destruction of earth" movies is that the person who discovers what is really going on is a housewife from the boonies. It is almost invariably never NASA or a highly respected objectivist scientist.

There are several humorous scenes in the movie, some which are totally laughable and inwardly funny. Meteorites is probably one of the more entertaining and watchable of the meteor/comet TV movies. Beware of celestial bodies coming

I guarantee you, just one hour of Meteorites! (they had to put an exclaimation mark in the title, didn't they) and you will fall asleep from boredom. I strongly believe that this mediocre meteor movie was filmed right here in Australia, as I can spot little Aussie things, like the packaging of chip cups and the fact that it is produced by Village Roadshow. Also, it stars Amiel Daemion, who is well known here for singing the hit song, "Addicted To Bass". In this film, she is flat and her acting range is limited. As for the plot, can you say "rip-off"? The special effects aren't that bad, but the film is so boring that you'll fall asleep before anything happens. And somebody call the props department, the Indian guy is supposed to have his leg trapped, but the block holding it down shakes around a little and lifts up when he moves. Please let this be the last TV produced disaster movie, before I saw this I thought "Volcano: Fire on The Mountain" was bad.

AUSTRALIAN CLASSIFICATION:

PG Medium Level Violence, Sexual References

Some diaster violence where you don't really see any impact occurs, as does some teenage sexual antics.