Ice : Tempête de glace aux USA

I saw Ice on June 12, 2004. Shortly after that I started seeing ads for DAT. I thought maybe DAT was a remake. Was I ever wrong! 'Ice' is much more like a rough draft, and DAT the finished product. I had the pleasure of seeing DAT August 4, 2004. 'Ice' reminds me of the good old days of disaster films, like Poseidon Adventure. Very hokey and extremely low budget! Was PA actually low budget? Who knows? Who cares? It also seemed like 'Ice' had a mixed language cast, so some people were dubbed and some people spoke English. There seems to be some made for SciFi channel/ German connection. Maybe their actors don't charge as much?

Enjoyable to watch if you have really NOTHING better to do! 'Ice' should absolutely be included in any list of disaster movies if you are a disaster fan.

Not too bad for a time killing flick... The FX were really cool (no pun intended! PROMISE!!!), but one has to wonder-what on earth happened to the "global warming" the liberal-ecoterrorist wackos 'promised' us?!?! Watching this flick made me want to run out and run my lawn mower, drive my truck more-in a gas guzzling low gear, and buy cattle to 'flatulate' for our very survival!!! OK, I have to have ten lines... The acting wasn't over the top-it was blah. The criminal coming to the rescue of the cop at the end was refreshing but not too believable. The Current/Ex thing was just too unbelievable, let's face it; in the real world there woulda been a fight sooner or later! The full of himself scientist getting whacked right before the rescue was good-who likes a scientist so full of himself?!?! Like I said, not too bad for a flick to kill time.

The big surprise? This is the very first "made-for-cable" movie I have ever watched start-to-finish. Granted, there wasn't much else on the other 130 channels this particular evening, but these SciFi Channel productions are generally so tedious that I'm gone before the first commercial break. This turkey DID have a few redeeming features: an attractive (physically) cast; acceptable computer effects; and spritely pacing (for a Cable feature). Yes, I know the plot holes were far too frequent and there were far too many uncalled-for characters, but I'm a sucker for "end of the world" genre and this one was only marginally worse than Armageddon. 2 1/2 stars out of 5 (5 out of 5 stars for a SciFi Potboiler).

Well, after the relative fail of a marketing bluff such as The Day After Tomorrow, I think it is time to concede some merit to this cheap, earlier movie that, in my humble opinion, developed a much more convincing story about a new Ice Age. Just wonder what could have be done with THIS script and The Day After Tomorrow resources? I simply must say that I felt much colder watching at this movie. The loneliness of the characters, some believable fights for the survival... all of this made the characters convincing and the whole story acceptable. Besides, this movie just was interested in COLD, and not in POLITICS. Quite entertaining. I rated it a 7

I was actually impressed by this. It's nothing spectacular, of course, but it's better than a lot of stuff in the apocalyptic genre that makes it to the big screen. Well-paced, well-acted (although the characters are slightly annoying), and good FX; you can't ask for much more than that. Plus I found the idea of people in LA faced with an ice age amusing.

My main complaint is that the details of the weather change are abrasively inaccurate. I doubt any Hollywood person actually knows what cold weather is like. I had the same problems with the recent "Alien vs. Predator," where the characters apparently don't need anything more than a light jacket to stay warm and toasty in Antarctica. Here, we have people walking around in negative 60 degree weather without hats or gloves on, and they are perfectly fine (seriously, they'd be dead in five minutes). The thing that irritated me most was when two people came indoors after being outside in the frigid cold, obviously about to die, and yet they are still able to dexterously move their fingers. Give me a break. At that point they wouldn't even HAVE fingers.

Well, personal complaints aside, it's not a bad film, and I suppose it is a notable addition to the mediocre natural disaster genre.

6/10 stars.