Meteor Apocalypse

The Asylum put this piece of space junk on film, and as usual for The Asylum it's a real piece of trash: an almost worthless would-be disaster flick, chock full of cheesy acting and cheesier special effects. The storyline sees a gigantic meteor heading towards Earth: boffins decide to try to blow it up, but all they succeed in doing is making tons of meteorites hit the Earth and blow up various places.

What this all boils down to is the usual rugged hero and his pretty sidekick attempting to outwit and evade human villains alongside the killer meteorites, which seem to have some kind of homing ability in the way that they're constantly chasing after our heroes. If you've seen one CGI meteorite strike you've seen them all, so after about ten minutes this film becomes boring in the extreme. Claudia Christian (THE HIDDEN) appears in a minor role.

My uncle and I watched the film and I liked it a lot more than he did. I felt it merited a 3 because....well....I've seen worse. He felt a 2 was being generous. Either way, these are not glowing endorsements.

The film begins with all the countries of the Earth launching their nukes into space at an oncoming meteor. However, the explosion only fragments it into many still big meteors that are STILL on a collision course with the planet. Oops. Now so far, this isn't a bad idea for a film. BUT, what happens next makes zero sense--when one of the meteors hits Lake Meade, it infects the water supply and people drinking it go into convulsions and die! Most of the rest of the film consists of a man trying to find his way back to his family from which he was separated. Unfortunately, most of his adventures are pretty dull. Not wretched...but not good.

Oddly, when I saw this listed on Netflix and IMDb, Claudia Christian (from "Babylon 5" is listed second in the credits--yet she's only in the first and last 5 minutes of the film.

Can't defend the script or the dialog, but much of the acting in this sci-fi disaster flick is first- rate, especially if you watch the special features and realize they shot this thing in only 12 days. Joe Lando and Cooper Harris, in particular, do exceptional work under what must have been trying conditions. Lando brings a real sense of desperation and urgency and Harris is compelling as a lost soul along for the ride. They even manage to make some of the horrendous dialog sound human and real. It's a shame they didn't have a better script to work with, but they and one or two others in the cast are well worth watching.

I have seen worse movies of this genre aired on the SyFy channel. In all honesty though, that's saying very little. Meteor Apocalypse was really quite a messy movie. If there was a redeeming quality, it was the surprisingly good and believable performance of Joe Lando. Sadly for this movie, the redeeming values end there. The rest of the acting ranges from bad to poor even from those who visibly try, and they are not helped by clichéd characters, dreadful writing and a contrived story full of scenes that don't ring true, and also naff special effects, scrappy photography and plodding direction and pacing. So all in all, one good asset isn't enough to salvage a bunch of well-below average ones. 2/10 Bethany Cox

This film is terrible in so many ways. Poorly acted, horrible direction, a plot line where the characters do ridiculous things.

But all that has been covered in other reviews here. What mystifies me is that this was released by a company called "Faith Films", with the DVD cover quoting Revelations, talking about a biblical prophecy and the End Times. None of that is mentioned in the film! There is one brief mention of going to church early in the movie, and later there is a pastor that helps some people. Those are not strong plot points, not highlighted or emphasized in any way. So what does "faith" have to do with this silly disaster movie? Nothing.

I tried to go to the Faith Films web site, and my anti-virus software blocked it, saying it may contain scam material. That could be a false blockage, but it kind of fits, considering the film really has nothing to do with Christianity, in spite of the DVD cover indicating otherwise. I guess that is a scam, too.

Anyway, the film is only worth watching if you want to mock how bad it is. For example, when the main character ends up in the desert for no particular reason. What?