2020 : Le Jour de glace

Effectively two movies masquerading as two episodes of TV, 'Ice' is not terrible and at times close to being good. It has all the right ingredients - big beautiful and well detailed sets, plenty of CGI of various qualities and a brisk energetic pace. At no point was I offended by its stupidity as the director Nick Copus emits an aura that he understands the purpose behind such entertainment.

What lets it down hugely however is its casting. Richard Roxburgh is terrible, and deliveries his lines like he has just stumbled into the studio after a thirty mile run. Frances O'Connor fares better and shows substantial better acting chops. Sam Neil is pathetic and forgettable. Ben Cross is passable and carries the scenes he is in along with the fantastic Brooke Williams and Claire Forlani.

The dialogue overall is the huge let down - overall it's some of the worst I've seen, largely because it is delivered so poorly. There was no talent in communicating with the actors/actress and the whole performance is compromised because of it. However it is difficult to deny that what remains of this is quite good fun if you focus on the eye candy and the visual splendor.

If you've seen the Day After Tomorrow then you've seen some of this. Much of this has echoes of that film but its a cheap imitation.

It's not awful but it's not great either.

I've watched a lot worse and it is entertaining.

Despite a good set of actors most of the dialogue is laughable. The dialogue almost feels made for radio if you shut your eyes. This is Sharkado meets Day After Tomorrow. I did however sit through both episodes of this mini series. I did actually enjoy it but for all the wrong reasons. Special effect where "special" indeed. The acting was poor adding more humorous moments. A man battered by large hail stones lays unconscious/ dead with blood over his face and one of the main characters shouts " hey you ok?"

It's made for TV so lower any expectations, read the reviews and lower them some more and you may enjoy this. I am a furloughed worked with too much time on my hands so if your bored on a Wednesday afternoon then it will see you through till it's time to eat again.

This is based on a great idea, and starts quite good. the first half an hours is quite OK, at least for a mediocre grade here, but then it deteriorates fast.

It's full of both bad scripting, silly dialog, awful CGI and laughable ideas. The actors do their best, and there are quite a few great actors here, which is left with a ridiculous script. The longer into the miniseries the worse they struggle in doing their job.

The worst is the extremely bad CGI. Even the ice and snow doesn't look like anything other than styrofoam. Simply laughable.

Stay away, unless you have three hours to kill with less than MacGyver on DVD.

I can't lie I did skip through some of it, because at times it was agonising to watch. It felt a little bit like Flood, which had been done some years before, a disaster TV series.

It does have a very, very impressive cast list, Stephen Moyer, Richard Roxburgh, Simon Callow etc, they fight against the somewhat dubious script.

It is far fetched beyond belief, but it does have some nice special effects.

They get points for forecasting that 2020 was the year of catastrophe, they got that spot on.

It's watchable enough, 5/10.