S.O.S. - La natura si scatena

You know, I thought CATEGORY 7: THE END OF THE WORLD was some cheesy B-movie style TV miniseries that had been made by one of the obscure cable channels when it debuted in the USA and probably seen by half a dozen people. Then I find out it bagged the highest viewing figures when it was first shown and was also nominated for an Emmy award. Er, did I see something different to everybody else? This is laughably, atrociously bad, a production that looks like it cost all of a hundred bucks and was made by a bunch of arrogant film school students. It's no different to the endless disaster movies churned out by the likes of the SyFy Channel, all of them bland, nondescript and indistinguishable from each other.

CATEGORY 7 contains four episodes which show America assailed by super storms and various other natural disasters, including (randomly) an invasion of poisonous frogs. The scenes of actual disaster are limited, but they're undeniably hilarious, utilising appalling CGI to show the destruction of famous landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. It's like a Lego version of a Roland Emmerich movie. And, inevitably, the title is a misnomer: only the eastern seaboard of America is threatened, although apparently according to the filmmakers that's the whole world (or at least the only bit that matters).

To sustain the running time, there are various sub-plots about TV evangelists, religious nuts, a terrorist group and some kidnapped kids. The dialogue is ear-gratingly routine and the performances are lacking; it's one of those productions where you sometimes feel embarrassed for the actors involved. Gina Gershon, almost unrecognisable after extensive plastic surgery, headlines, and there are minor parts for Robert Wagner, James Brolin, Tom Skerritt, and others besides. Probably the most amusing turn comes from Randy Quaid, reprising his "wacky" turn from INDEPENDENCE DAY as a storm chaser. Sadly, the only reason to watch this is as an unintentional comedy, by which virtue it's funnier than most genuine comedies in cinemas at the moment.

Having suffered through four hours (if you count commercials) of one of the most ambitious, yet disappointing disaster movies of recent times, I have but one observation to make: It is obvious that none of the writers, directors, or producers have ever experienced a real hurricane. I was okay with the tornado mega-storm stuff, even though that was all a stretch, but the "Category Seven" event produced by the combination of the super cell and Hurricane Eduardo (or whatever) was laughable, to say the least. Honestly, you would think that in a year when we have seen the devastation of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, the writers would have at least picked up some real-world hurricane facts by watching the Weather Channel! First, as racerx70 pointed out in a previous posting, they couldn't even get something as simple as the wind speeds right. They said the hurricane had winds of 150mph, which is definitely a Cetrgory 4, albeit a strong one. A "Category 7," however, even if that rating existed, would probably have sustained winds in the 200mph range, and no one would be able to move around DURING THE STORM like those people did. Secondly, where was the rain? Other than what looked like someone driving through a car wash as the hurricane was approaching, the streets were dry in all the subsequent shots. A "Category 7" storm composed entirely of dry air? (Maybe the winds were so strong the rain evaporated!) Third point: How about all the untaped, unboarded, unshuttered glass windows that survived a "Category 7" hurricane without so much as a crack? I loved that part! There were so many shots of the Senator in his office during the height of the storm with the intact, uncovered windows behind him, not to mention all the ones in the laboratory that were equally unprotected and unscathed. (I guess it was a UN-directional hurricane.) The last point that convinces me the writers have no idea of what goes on in a hurricane: The heroes were concerned about talking the powers-that-be to shut off the electricity in DC to rob the storm of fuel. Like they had a choice!!! Do you people (writers, producers) have any idea of what "150 mph" winds do to utility poles, lines, trees, etc., and how quickly power is one of the first things to go when a hurricane hits? Imagine what winds gusts in excess of 200 mph would do? Bottom line: I enjoy a good disaster flick, even ones as far-fetched as this one (and The Day After Tomorrow), and I know something like this requires a great deal of imagination and creativity, but at least do a little research before selling something this big to a major network to broadcast over two nights! (I wonder what the people in Florida and along the Gulf Coast thought of this, assuming that they have power from the last hurricane.)

It's not often I like the acting done by Shannon dougherty or randy Quaide, but I actually enjoyed both of them in this. It wasn't preachy like the previous film, just mindless entertainment for a day of boredom. Often times I just want a good bad movie to watch, something light-hearted, not intellectual, mind numbingly corny with some fun action and maybe some slightly sub par special effects. And this delivers in spades and goes a little above in this regard. I'm not a fan of the religious trope of the evil Christian but it was forgivable though advancing a second plot that wasn't horrible, just lacking a little on execution.

Ooooooook - I read every review posted here, and I gotta tell ya, almost all are WAY off the mark. For one thing, this movie was BRILLIANT. How many other film makers have the GUTS to deliver, with gusto, a throw-back-to-the-80's-made-for-TeeVee-movie, complete with a plot and hundreds of sub-plots so improbable, you don't have to suspend your disbelief, you have to brutally murder it? What great fun! The special F/X? You mean like the PLEASE-DON'T-NOTICE-THE-STORY-LINE shots of waves destroying the Statue of Liberty, for instance? Let me just say, that without that standard-stock, must-include destruction of Lady Liberty, the film makers would have been crucified for not including it. If you're going to wipe out New York, that statue has to be one of the first things to go. Otherwise, you lose credibility on an oh, say Category 9.33 scale...

James Brolin must have been THRILLED to get that part...and electrocuting him, the voice of all things unholy about preachers, was also a default requirement. If you're gonna do a movie about natural disaster, Christians have GOT to die, and they must deserve to.

Tell you what I LOVED about the script - well - a couple of things.... First, our hero's wife seems REALLY OBSESSED over hubby having an affair....the world may be ending, Buffalo NY may be in the midst of becoming God's personal pick-up-sticks playground, but baby, we are going to talk about you and HER right now!!! And WOW - you had to LOVE the whole kidnapping angle as the families were whisked away from their Magical Mystical Tour of a collapsing NYC. Again, if you don't wedge in some utterly impossible, completely off-the-wall sub-plot like a well-organized, highly efficient kidnapping of CHILDREN that took less than a couple of hours to actually plan and pull off, you risk losing your SAG card. KUDOS!!!

***NOTE***I've sat in on a few script writing sessions for series television, and in defense of writers, I can tell you they more often than not are forced to write scripts like this one, despite their protests. So give the PRODUCERS (and the network)the credit here - it's well-earned, I'm sure.

The choppy camera work, the slow motion, all of it was in PERFECT HARMONY with the quality of work expected for this endeavor. The film crew will feel like it's virtually raining Emmy's...they, in turn, can thank the EDITORS for this gift, who can in turn thank the DIRECTOR, who like as not is right now sitting in his 7th grade drama class, wondering where it all went so wrong....

Rockets, a fighter jet with an octogenarian at the controls, and a hero who works in his garage with a bunch of high school drop outs to save us from THE END OF THE WORLD all made this a delightful film. For the finale (which I will TIVO so I can watch it over and over), I am going to wear my double knit polyester disco clothes, mute the sound, and spin up some Bee Gees for my own musical score.

Then, mercifully, about the time the requisite speech from someone begins about the ills of SUV's, my alarm will go off, and I'll awaken to the sound of thunder....

Just terrible. A total waste of time. There were a surprising number of actors and actresses that I had previously thought were at least half-way decent, but for each of them, this is clearly their worst performance. Sadly, though, as bad as the acting was, it was the best thing this "movie" had going for it. This is doubly bad, as I am pretty sure the producers were banking on special effects to save the movie. But they were very disappointing, despite being the obvious focus of the film. In addition to their technical flaws, they fall into the recent trap of thinking that every big disaster scene must have some famous landmark in it. One or two can give you a sense of setting, constantly using landmarks gets really annoying. Worse, the special effects were poorly used, distracting one from the story, instead of adding to it. Which might have bothered me if the story wasn't so weak. The plot had holes you could drive a Mack truck through. And the worst part of the whole thing was the stupid lines they had. One prime example was one where a meteorologist was saying that he used to be able to count on certain things, like the fact that anything above a Category 5 storm was impossible. Well duh! The category 6 and 7 hurricanes that he talks about are impossible. You don't even have to know a thing about science beyond what the classifications are to know that. Category 5 hurricanes or tropical storms are anything with wind speeds above 155 mph. So no matter how strong the storm, it's still only Category 5 by definition. This is but one example of the bad dialog in the film. It's also an example of the science in the movie that is as bad as "science" in the presidential reports on global warming that this movie seems to be trying to satirize. An easy target, but it manages to fail miserably. Almost makes you wonder if they have the opposite agenda...