Panique sur Seattle

There are so many disaster movies out there, both good, bad and mediocre, that it takes some effort to say this falls squarely in to the 'don't bother' category...

As a TV movie Seattle Superstorm doesn't start off well with its rather misleading title - a few dark clouds and a bit of wind does not make a Super-storm. Follow this up with dodgy acting, iffy dialogue, middle of the road effects,and worst of all terrible storyline and writing, and what you have is a disaster movie as a package and not just a genre.

Character wise I didn't mind 'dad/scientist' Tom (Esai Morales) and could tolerate 'mom/Navy Lt' Emma (Ona Grauer) (although a Lt as the highest Military adviser?) however I would happily put their kids up for adoption as both 'gearhead' Wyatt (Jared Abrahamsom) and 'ecochick' Chloe (MacKenzie Porter) are eternally grating in their sinicism and petty battles. Of course two movie teenagers whose parents are due to remarry will rarely be best buddies (unless they are too close!),however this pair should be hidden in a dark seller with boxing gloves to sort out their differences.

So what about the story? Well I for one am glad the US military will happily shoot down UFOs with apparently knowing nothing more than it was plotted by a bored tech operator in the standard 'Artic station'. And aren't we glad that the debris lands within yards of the nations disaster management officials...who just happen to be in Seattle(or Vancouver!?!..a dodgy CGI needle does not make a city!).

The result is an increasingly dangerous superstorm that threatens to destroy the world in 4 weeks which gives the perfect excuse for dodgy science to win the day - but not before the requisite near death experiences of the primary characters.

And this is what annoys me the most. In the mighty USA, so often gloating of their superiority in overcoming all threats its the same four dysfunctional family members who provide much of the knowledge and impetus in saving the world, not because its a TV movie and so you need a cheap and cheerful set of heros but seemingly because the government officials are ruled by a jerk, the armed forces are nonexistent after the initial actions, the emergency departments are awol, and even the local Seattle folks are busy just hiding in a dark corner.

I seem to have fallen asleep during the explanation of the 'alien' artifacts so no spoilers other than saying what a surprise that the Russian chief scientist just happens to wander in to the exact same Seattle Lab that the protagonists are working in at the perfect moment to give detail background to the effects and the results. Maybe the security also fell asleep...?

Overall I was pleasantly surprised - not by the movie as it was pants,but that I made it through to the end considering it wasn't even 'so bad its good' because it's really not.

I've seen worse effects, and not all the acting was terrible...and that's about it for good points. The rest of the points were negatives and the score reflects it...

3/10...avoid

As I've said many times before, I have made no secret of disliking a vast majority of SyFy's output. A couple are tolerable without ever being great, but a lot of them are either lame or bottom-of-the-barrel. As bad as they are, there's something about their awfulness that not only is compulsive but at times can amuse me. From reading the premise, which is the sort of nothing-new, silly sort of premise, I wasn't expecting much, but Seattle Superstorm actually was worse than I expected. It, even for a low budget TV movie, is a poorly made movie, with editing so slapdash it made my head hurt and special effects that are among the most cheap-looking and cheesily used of any effects in a SyFy movie since Titanic II. The dialogue is incredibly insipid, especially about when they are talking about who is going into the tank to release the water, and the story is dull and predictable with the positioning of the manual valve in a position where anybody about to open it would die was beyond stupid. I got a good laugh with the lightning obliteration scene, but that was it. The characters are among SyFy's most irritating and stereotypical, and the acting is very poor, Esai Morales is okay, but everybody else is just bad especially the 16 year old girl who not just once but twice comes up with a save the world solution and the grandfather who acts like he is in a different film altogether.

All in all, SyFy have done worse than Seattle Superstorm, but it is still a train wreck. 1/10 Bethany Cox

We know that the Hollywood movies are produced by a certain recipe which the director of most movies gets when he joined the school somewhere in the US. When they make a certain catastrophic cinema there is a certain recipe that they better follow in order to produce "good result".

Somewhere in the beginning of the story you will see a pair of teenagers arguing about who know what in earnest and the parents doesn't seem to care and then something is flying into the US airspace. I have no idea how the airspace monitoring works, but apparently there is a single station in the middle of nowhere manned by only a single watchman who love porn.

Whatever the thing that shoot into US territory, it was partially destroyed by a missile. When you see the title, you would have expect something of the natural things which cause havoc in Seattle, but of course the this time it is not of nature so that there is a leeway to kill the Superstorm....

If you want to show a disaster in a big city of the size like Seattle, it would be logical to show the activities of the people in the city, but apparently the director forgot about it. You will see some high rise building which looks like an architect dummy models several time. To show the threat of super-storm, a little of FX animation of dark cloud. A very poor presentation of big city facing a major natural disaster.

Again, I do not how good the science project in high-school in the US, but to have some kid beats up a whole group of scientists trying to solve the problem is a bit too much. What are they trying to show ? A brilliant high-school girl or a stupid bunch of American scientists ?

The acting is alright, they behave rather well, except the father who seems a bit of out touch with the scene. Does it make any sense to anybody that a mother is worried about her teenage daughter's ability to reach home on her own ? Specially when she has a strong will daughter ? It just does not compute....

If you have some time to waste..., The Day After Tomorrow will give you a better value for your time.

Tom moves to Seattle to be closer to his fiancé, Emma, both of them are on their second marriage so their respective idiot offspring, the daft Wyatt and Eco idiot Chloe, are both moving in together, then a huge series of natural disasters start via a very unnatural source when the military shoots down a UFO and it crashes into the sea.

As if the usual Syfy film detriments of awful special effects and equally appalling acting wasn't enough, this one added whiny bickering, cardboard clichéd annoying characters and a generally daft script to the mix. Before too long I found myself actively rooting for the Superstorm to off them all and end the film (along with my misery)

...What was I thinking when I started watching this joke of a film :(

This was a relatively long movie and made it feel 10x longer by terrible script and extremely poor acting. Except for one mediocre actor in the movie, the acting was so awful that it 'felt like' the mediocre character ended up sacrificing his life as he was unable to tolerate the tiresome dribble from every other character near the end of the movie.

The only good thing I liked about the movie was at least they tried giving a happy-ending and not abrupt like many of the movies made nowadays.