Missione Mercurio

There isn't one bit of remote possibility to this Science-Fiction and that automatically takes it to that arena of the absurd and lands it in a place called Hooterville. Almost every scene has a defiance of known Physics. So don't check your brain at the door, pull it from your skull and throw it on the floor and stomp it into mush.

OK, now you may be able to enjoy this Apocalyptic story that is nothing if not full of one crazy concept after another. People die horribly but no one seems to care, there are bigger fish frying, namely our planet. This badly acted Made-for-TV Movie cannot be faulted for trying to be exciting for it has many cliffhangers. It is all done with TV style CGI that is colorful, but shoddy.

You may find yourself actually rooting for more deaths and perhaps even an atypical ending of the title coming true. But it seems the wrong ones die and Earth is not one of them. This would have been so much better if it did and might have made this worth a view. If you like them bombastically BAD you're gonna love this one.

I admit my bar wasn't that high. After all it is a made for TV, low budget, SyFy movie. I am willing to forgive mediocre FX and CGI - after all our expectations for those things has been raised to high art thanks to all the big budget flicks out there. I am willing to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy a decent action or science fiction story. I don't mind chuckling at cliché plot devices when they're tongue-in-cheek. I happily do these all these things when a film is so unbelievably bad that it becomes an unintentional comedy. This movie does none of these things for me. For a science-based plot the writing can't pass even a cursory understanding of a grade 9 curriculum. Not in one instance or two but over and over and over again. The effect was akin to being grabbed by the cranium and shaken violently out of the story so that you are left staring at all the other otherwise forgivable weaknesses and amateurish plot devices. I have seen worse movies, though only a few, and I now add this to the list of bad movies that make the mediocre ones much more enjoyable by comparison.

Here we have another low rent disaster flick produced by the SyFy Channel. This one has to be seen to be believed as the writers craft a scenario that would only ever have been halfway believable on a massive budget. As it stands this Canadian production only had about $10 to play with so the result is less than effective, shall we say.

Still, I found this one to be a neat slice of so-bad-it's-good entertainment, and much of it is a right laugh. The story sees Mercury somehow going out of orbit and heading towards earth, so a renegade scientist has to do his best to figure out how to stop a whole planet approaching the earth. Meanwhile there's a lot of 'magnetic' disaster going on, in which cars are pulled up into the air before being dumped unceremoniously back down to Earth.

Lead actor Kirk Acevedo (THE WALKING DEAD) is a real hoot in this one. He starts out looking mildly concerned and his single expression gradually deepens to all-out worry as the story progresses. I've never seen an actor look so worried in a film, he must have added about a hundred frown lines to his face just from acting in this. The CGI effects of floating cars are absolutely laughable and cracked me up every time they were on screen; my favourite bit is the tractor scene which I had to rewind just to check out how rubbish it was.

When the sun converts to a magnetar for a short time, the planet Mercury is thrown out of orbit (along with a spaceship exploring it) and set on a collision course for Earth.

I am officially declaring Paul Ziller the king of the 21st Century B-Movie Directors, taking the crown away from Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski (who shared it). His output of "Ice Quake" and "Stonehenge Apocalypse", among others, suggests he has mastered the end-of-the-world science fiction film.

This film goes above and beyond the sheer level of scientific nonsense previously seen in the movies. The Sun being turned into a magnetar? A space shuttle exploring Mercury (apparently today, not in the future)? A pirate radio reaching a space craft when no one else can?

And then you have the special effects, which rank among the other SyFy films for the worst (though I caught hints that maybe they are getting better). Throw in multiple action scenes with guns and knives (who knew that being an astronomer was so exciting?) and you have a Ziller masterpiece.

Because its a made for TV movie on a much smaller budget than the usual Hollywood fare I always try to look for the small positives than pick out the disappointing negatives...but this was a difficult one to judge.

The plot is pretty thin and most definitely not based on any science or engineering that comes close to real world truths. At best it can be described as 'fanciful', though its often closer to ludicrous as Mercury somehow gets forced out its orbit on a collision course with earth - a variation on the old asteroid theme I suppose so nice to think the writers at least tried even if the final result was less than perfect.

What didn't ring so well was the old cliché of the disgraced/renegade scientist being the anti-hero of the plot. Even the squeezing in of his Astronaut wife who by pure coincidence is on a spaceship journeying to the doomed Mercury isn't enough to distract from this oldest and most annoying of SyFy/Disaster characters.

Talking of the actors its a fair lineup of B/TV-stars but even this isn't enough to save them from over/underacting and the terrible screenplay and script. As the primary lead Kirk Acevedo ensures that the term Wooden Expression will continue in acting circles, whilst Dianne Farr as his Astronaut wife is entirely wasted in ridiculous space drama segments.

After the space drama the more earth based effects of the floating/falling cars are absolutely laughable and definitely second rate CGI, especially when it appears nothing else is magnetic in 'Seattle' it seems.

This was pretty poor even considering the less than good competition. It wasn't so much a major point of failure that affects the rating but rather a massive dose of boredom as I completely failed to get excited by what was altogether a rather by-the-numbers movie. .... +A different premise +Decent cast (but wasted!) -Bored and wooden acting -Poor effects -Very,very Clichéd

So that's 2+, 3-

Watchable, laughable, forgettable -4/10