End Day

Interesting but flawed. The effects are fairly well done. Not a lot of new info here that most people don't know.

Entertaining and short.

My favorite part of this was when one interviewee near the end was named Brian Cox, and then the interviewee after him kept repeating the word "succession." Truly forward-thinking as a docudrama/disaster movie, End Day is.

When judged as a TV movie made during the middle of the 2000s, it's fine. There are a couple of shots that understand the budget is next to nothing, and these are the most effective. Unfortunately, other shots are way too ambitious, rendering certain parts of this horrendously bad-looking.

It's interesting how Gareth Edwards more often than not makes films with bland/bad protagonists - I couldn't stand the lead guy in this, and the self-aware Groundhog Day approach to showing the world ending in several different ways is probably more interesting in theory than it was in execution here; maybe some points can be afforded for effort.

Judging strictly on a realism scale (and perhaps a cheesiness scale) I would have given this one a 6 or 7. It gets the bonus point for a few moments and references that are genuinely hilarious if you are quick enough to catch them.

Part Groundhog Day, part Run Lola Run (without the awesome soundtrack), we follow a scientist working on a LHC-type project trying to fly from London to NYC for the big experiment. We cycle through the day repeatedly with different scenarios unfolding:

1) A massive tsunami hitting NYC; 2) A meteor storm and incoming larger meteor; 3) A new pandemic; 4) The Yellowstone caldera finally blows; 5) The LNC does, in fact, produce a black hole

I think this could have been an amazingly intelligent 'what if' (or, as the movie's mantra says "not what if, but when") scenario projection with some thoughtful commentary on such events, but it was largely reduced to a scientific summation in each instance.

I also found that the idea of parallel events (people who cross the Dr.'s path on his way to the airport, etc) could have been even more flushed out, but that would have made it more of a two-hour movie rather than a 1-hour spoonful of docudrama. It would have made this much stronger though.

As 3 and 4 are the most likely scenarios, it was very sobering to watch. And 1 is certainly more plausible with the recent footage of Superstorm Sandy's effects on a populous city like NY. Sadly the 5th was laughable, but perhaps that was the point? Why worry about a particle collider (which we now know, went onward with its experiment without catastrophic results) when we have scenarios that are far more likely?

There are five possible endings and two levels of the movie.

The first level is science fiction, ie. fiction based on science. Scientists do comment the different possible scenarios: Super tsunami, super eruption, meteor collision, virus outbreak and strangelet creation. Most of these happenings do not lead to the end of the world, some of them are displayed actually in very mild manner (like the meteoric impact which would be way way more devastating that displayed). But never worry, it is worthy of your time anyway.

The second level is pure scifi, ie. story about the man who wakes every day to experience another end of the world. The parallel stories are actually very well connected and it is extremely enjoyable. You can even see these little details like references to dinosaurs in meteorite plot. I would say this was done better that many "real" scifi movies. It worked for me, I really enjoyed it several times. I could watch another set of scenarios, maybe even darker ones.

Way to go, BBC, great work!

I don't get the low rating for this well done little movie. In the style of "Groundhog Day" , it presents several possible mega-catastrophes, two of which have actually occurred since this docu-drama was made, in 2004. The last catastrophic event dramatized in the movie is a physics experiment gone wrong. It is the most catastrophic of all, but, No Spoilers, you'll have to watch the movie.