L'enfer de glace

I feel dumber for having watched this. The acting is awful. The plot is ridiculous. The storyline is completely nonsensical. Even if you rent this to get a glimpse of Erika Eleniak you will be disappointed. Yes she is in there, but the term 'aging playmate' is painfully accurate. Effects: laughable. Character development: a joke. I can not say enough bad things about this movie. Maybe it was intended as a joke on 'The Day After Tomorrow'. If so, its not very funny. Jeff Fahey's mom turned it off half way through. Ugh. Gack. Bad. Horrible. I want my hour and a half back. It is a struggle to come up with 10 lines about this movie without resorting to repeating the words 'sucks' over and over again. The science is bad. The acting is bad. The filming is bad. The concept is bad. This is a bad movie.

One would think the timely subject of global warming and climate change would offer plenty of good fodder for a competent writer but this movie wastes an embarrassment of riches. All the worst adjectives apply here: tired, hackneyed, predictable, boring, etc. I've sat through some remarkably bad movies but I was actually angry with myself for wasting 96 minutes with this one. It starts poorly and the basement level production quality gives the first hint of what's to come. Even if you can get past the abysmal script and cardboard cut-out acting (can't blame the third rate thespians here, they had absolutely zero to work with), there's such bad science being presented that you can't even relate to the events that unfold. The plot takes place in Miami Florida but was filmed in Canada which means stock footage of the Miami skyline and Florida seashore with bad porn incidental music is cut in with actors walking around the port authority of Toronto, a marina in Quebec or some such place. "I see boat masts…it's gotta be South Beach!" The film's laziness with geography is second only to its ignorance of basic science and the direction of the flow of the Gulf Stream. For once the title of the film advertises exactly how entertaining it is. I'll never admit to seeing this one.

Absolute Zero is about a climatologist that discovers that the shifting of the poles causes severe climate change, like -400 degrees. A crooked project manager working for a greedy company hopes to make millions off of the information that the pole change is happening now. The climatologist hooks up with an old buddy that just happened to marry the girl he walked out on. They attempt to tell some dopey politician to get all the sunbathers in Miami to evacuate before the cold snap hits and also save themselves. Tired plot is not helped by the low grade special effects and relatively good acting. Not a great time, but not a total waste of time.

ABSOLUTE ZERO is an absolute pig of a film; conceived as a zero-budget, made-in-Canada rip-off of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The modern-day disaster movies made by the SyFy Channel and The Asylum look like masterpieces by comparison.

The storyline sees part of a glacier breaking off to bring winter to Miami. Soon enough the whole of Florida is at freezing point so it's up to the usual renegade scientist and his extended family to do something about it. Everything imaginable about the movie is horrid: the script, the dialogue, the almost entire lack of believability throughout. The CGI effects of snow drifts and storms look like they've been drawn onto the camera with a child's pencil. The constant melodrama is laughable.

Hardworking B-movie actor Jeff Fahey is the gruff lead here, but even he looks flabby and tired by the whole thing. BAYWATCH actress Erika Eleniak plays his estranged wife, but there were only ever a couple of reasons why she was popular and they've long since headed south. As usual, a couple of annoying teenage children turn out to be the cleverest ones around.

So the graphics and sets are poorly created, the acting is mediocre, the plot is predictable, and the science is childishly inaccurate... but it certainly doesn't deserve a 3/10. If you expect to see cheesy made-for-TV quality, you won't be disappointed, because that was the intent of this movie. Certainly no blockbuster but it's good in it's own way.

Essentially, a rogue scientist determines that the magnetic poles are going to shift, resulting in the rapid deep freeze of the equator. Of course, nobody believes him until it's too late. Throw in some romantic tension, angry standoffs, an evil businessman, hero kid, a few death scenes, and a semi-happy ending... bam! A cliché sci-fi movie that can be enjoyed by anyone who can appreciate it for what it is.

I would have to agree with most of the opinions not to buy or rent the movie, but if you happen to see it on TV, or flip through and find it on netflix while bored, give it a try. Keep your expectations low, like Battlefield Earth low, and you may actually enjoy it.