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.

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.

I love disaster movies, and weather catastrophe disaster movies :) This one is just fine. It's intelligent, well-enough paced, good special effects, and enough drama and excitement to keep it moving along. I think maybe people who were expecting something fast-paced with thrills and spills and all that jazz were probably disappointed. In fact, it's a fairly intelligent tv drama. There are kids in it, but they aren't at all annoying, the way most kids in disaster movies seem to be. There's a grandpa, and Ben Cross brings a likeable real-life-person quality to him, rather than being the folksy, taking it on the chin for the women-folk kinda thing. The Brits are good at this kind of movie, and they do it again here. I like the combined UK-NZ collaboration. There are a lot of NZ actors that we don't see enough of (I first saw Taika Waititi on Brokenwood Mysteries, for example!). I liked it. As opposed to other weather disaster movies, this one seems fairly realistic, and I didn't for one moment feel that this was something I could survive. Good enough for that reason alone ;>

This is some of the worst writing and directing I've ever seen.

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.