Supernova

SuperNova is an astonishingly cheeseball TV disaster miniseries--not that I expected much more than that. The acting is truly awful, the plot is utterly riddled with clichés. The Spunky Hero (Luke Perry) has to stop the sun from exploding or something like that. Tia Carrere plays his butt-kickin FBI gal pal. But there's no friskiness between these two--he's got a loving wife and adorable daughter at home.

Who are in danger from (*gasp*) a RAPIST! The series stupidly segue-ways from an exploding sun to a convicted rapist going after the Loving Wife and the Adorable Daughter.

The Adorable Daughter is played by Eliza Bennett, who sadly had to take a stop in this miniseries before she stars in the highly anticipated 2008 fantasy film 'Inkheart,' also starring Brendan Fraser and Paul Bettany. And Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent.

You get my point. There are probably people with potential talent here, but is is, of course, wasted in this awful film. Don't pick this one up.

The Hallmark Network has chosen to create a series of movies to supplement their "Hall of Fame" product. They are off to a decidedly mixed start with "Supernova." Certainly, their timing could not have been worse, given events in New Orleans. Too bad they couldn't have scheduled another film for this time.

"Supernova" would a made a pretty good two hour disaster movie. Cut out the "dime store" space special effects and the trite "serial killer" subplot and you'd have something pretty memorable. Unfortunately, the "solar flare" effects look about as realistic as Disney 2D animation. While not particularly surprising, given the limited effects budget for TV fare, the bad "space effects' contrast jarringly with the pretty good "earth effects" on display.

Peter Fonda plays, flatly, a world famous astronomer who predicts the sun will go supernova (enlarge, then explode) within a month (or, was it a week). Luke Perry plays an astrophysicist(!), also flatly, and is the principal protagonist. Lance Henriksen plays his stock baddie. The women come off much better in the acting department, most notable are Tia Carrere (as a government agent), Emma Samms (as a crusading TV news commentator), Clemency Burton-Hill (as a scientist) and an unnamed actress who plays Fonda's bartender-squeeze.

Jettison an hour and "Supernova" would be good enough for a "7". As presented, however, it barely squeaks by as a "5".

This "movie" was broad-casted last night on a french network. I couldn't believe my eyes how bad it was. There's absolutely nothing good about it. I mean nothing. Acting was zero, "science" completely stupid, backgrounds and CGI look like being painted by a 50's artist, and so on. I understand that even better artists need sometimes to pay big taxes so they have to play in second choice productions...But please ! Not in such a crap ! About location : Cape Town, South Africa, is perfectly recognizable in most exterior scenes (Table Mountain with Signal Hill on its right when looking from the sea; the business center of the city; even in some street scenes you can see typical buildings with Old Cape Dutch style; the license plates are definitely capetonians; on a house wall there is a plate claiming that the house is protected by Chubb Security Company; in one scene you can see a train, which is a Metro one, used in CPT,...etc.).

A "movie" to forget. There's nothing else to do with it.

The Sun cuts loose and attacks the Earth! This must surely be one of the worst movies ever made - an abysmal script, ridiculous sets and effects, woeful actors, outrageously poor accents, unbelievable story, ridiculous conclusion, etc, etc It's like a Godzilla movie, but without the finely-tuned character development and deeply thought-out plot - hell, it makes Godzilla look like Shakespeare.

Set in Sydney - oh really?? did they do ANY research AT ALL? Do they have any clue what an Australian accent actually sounds like? Peter Fonda has a sort of minor role - boy, he must have been pretty hard up for money to accept a role in such a turkey.

Plan 9 From Outer Space updated to the 21st century!

Almost as funny as Robot Monster, or any of the magnificent Ed Wood Classics, but without the deep scientific grasp of those earlier films.

Read a dozen or so reviews -- the reviewers put a lot more into their posts than anyone connected with this incredible turkey -- I didn't see any review mention that our sun can't supernova, it isn't the right kind of star. It can nova, and its furthest expansion will reach the orbit of the inner planets, probably out to earth, but will not fill the whole solar system, as stated by one of the characters.

Great observation by one of the reviewers on how, after surviving in those Phoenix locations, the lucky few come to the surface and get to work on constructing a new sun. Excellent! And naturally in an actual nova there most certainly won't be anyone coming up, and probably no earth remaining to come up from -- but also no sun, and that wasn't comprehensible to anyone involved with this nonsense. No one in the whole project who knew any science at all, with tens of millions of dollars to burn -- pun definitely intended.

During the opening scenes I thought the story would involve the supernova of some distant giant star finally reaching our solar system seven million later. Silly me, that would have been far too stuck in boring reality.

The weirdest part is from start to finish I couldn't stand any of the characters. Can't say that about any of the Ed Wood masterpieces.