Earthstorm

Watching a movie requires viewers to suspend their disbelief, and this movie has much to disbelieve. We can talk about the unoriginal story, cookie-cutter characters, stiff acting, and phony science, but what's the point? A movie is worth your time if it entertains, and "Earthstorm" succeeds at least in doing that, so let's look at what this film gives us to enjoy.

First, the special effects are not bad. People tend to confuse the "how" with the "what" when judging special effects so that the effects often get the blame for low plausibility. In this film, though, "how" they show is credible even if "what" they show is not.

Second, the music is quite good. It sustains tension throughout the film and adds emotional content at key points--exactly what it a movie score supposed to do.

Third, the acting is adequate. This isn't a film by Cameron, Kubrick, or Crichton, so let's cut the cast some slack. I've never met any demolition experts, but I bet they're more like Stephen Baldwin in "Earthstorm" than like Bruce Willis in "Armageddon". And seeing Dirk Benedict ("Faceman" from the 1980s TV series "The A-Team") as the smug, self-important science advisor to The White House is a treat.

Best of all is the film's message. More-realistic sci-fi movies such as "Alien", "Europa Report", "Gravity", and "The Martian" tell us that space exploration is dangerous and largely unnecessary as if filmmakers want us to stay on our home planet. "Earthstorm" has a positive message: The more we know about space, the better prepared we are to protect life on earth.

Sci-fi has come a long way from the 1950s, but anyone who admires "The Day the Earth Stood Still" has no excuse for disliking this movie.

Because of an enormous meteor impact, the moon begins to break up, threatening to pummel the Earth with an immense number of meteorites, as well as ravage it with bizarre atmospheric conditions.

It's all routine, incoming meteors threatening the end of the world. Going in, you know this is just escapist nonsense (fashioned suspiciously like Armageddon, but with a lower budget), and will require suspension of disbelief on a grand scale, but be prepared for a meteor shower of plot and character clichés, cheap effects, and an obvious outcome.

The movie spends a lot of time developing likable and interesting characters, and the respectably good acting helps accomplish this. If only the script writers had been just as conscientious about scientific plausibility, the movie would have been better off. You expect less than awesome special effects on this budget, but some of them look downright cheesy. The fireball meteors, for example, looked phonier than Monopoly money.

Clichés: we got 'em: dumb government big shot who makes a nuisance out of himself and mocks others, maverick scientist, meteors targeting big city skyscrapers and nothing else, unknown nobody whose expertise (in this case a building demolisher) saves the world, etc.

Plot holes are far too numerous to list; my two favorites are 1) nobody except the principals suspect the smoking moon (which oddly is always a full moon) and accompanying asteroid bombardment might be related, and 2) the Space Shuttle dodgeball game at a zillion mph with a million meteorites--right out of an old video game. I expected to see the pilot's game score appear in the upper corner of the screen at any moment.

Fun, and laughably outrageous. Looking for plot holes is but one way to enjoy this. Any movie about a guy who implodes buildings being called upon to implode the moon, that's a movie to see, folks.

This movie was just another Armageddon ripoff except with VERY bad acting and even worse special effects. The story is not even believable and they use a lot of technical jargon to try to overcome the obvious flaws in the plot. I cant believe I actually watched the whole thing! Stephen Baldwin should have not even been in this movie.

The rest of the cast didn't flow well together. There were way too many computer generated special effects that were too obvious. I can not stress enough how bad this movie was.

I don't recommend this at all!

SIMPLY HORRIBLE on sooooo many levels!!!

The effects in the movie are horrible. As stated before they look like N64 type graphics. The plot seems to be ripped off from Armageddon. An asteroid hits the moon causing a fault and chunks of the moon start flying towards earth.

The one thing that was cool is that ASI is actually Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada dressed up. To be more specific it is the college's I-Wing, which is the Information Technology wing. And the circular room with the TV in the wall is actually there... not just for the movie.

To sum up in one word "underbudget" I wouldn't buy the movie.

This is what I get for being bored on a Monday night. I mean how bad can it be, Steve Baldwin, Dirk Benedict (Starbuck, where ya been). I at least hope they were able to pay their rent for the month after this.

As the title of this review states the movie is basically Armagedon but instead of an asteroid we are in peril due to the moon and a fault line which has opened up on its surface. The Ed Wood reference is because everything else in the film makes me think that if Ed was still alive and had even the slightest budget this is what he would be making. The shuttle set kept making me remember the plane cockpit from Plan 9, except no curtain for a door this time. All of the effects have a Nintendo 64 look to them (even a PS2 would be better) or a rip from a Discovery channel special on space travel.

Of the acting I can't really complain, nothing great but nothing overly bad. I was excited at the beginning to see Dirk Benedict acting again but he seems to just come in and out of the film.

In the end I think I laughed more then anything, not something to get worked up about for sure.

Also, not to my country's credit, this is a Canadian film not an American one as the IMDb site states. At the end of the credits it clearly states that it is a Ontario-Quebec co-production (so sad).