Explosion solaire

If anyone watches a TV disaster flick and expects anything but entertaining schlock, they need a reality check. Such movies are designed for two nights of brainless entertainment, not scientific accuracy and logic. If the viewer expects the writers and directors to adhere to strict science at the expense of excitement and suspense, seriously... do you realize what this is? It's not like anyone forced you to watch yet another disaster film.

Comparatively, this movie is considerably better than anything produced by Asylum. The characters were cliche but at least held true to their nature. The writing wasn't awful (we've seen awful writing, yes?). Okay, so the science isn't spot on (or even close). The purpose here is to keep the average viewer entertained and face it, the average viewer has very little knowledge of actual science.

The questions here are: was the story entertaining, was the filming and acting okay, was it boring or exciting? Expecting a disaster film to be cerebral is like watching a Saturday morning cartoon and giving it 2 stars for being childish. Let's not be goofy.

I enjoyed the film, despite the scientific inaccuracy, despite the illogical presentation, because I didn't go in with a, "I'm going to be as critical as I can be" attitude. I went in to watch a television disaster film, knowing exactly what this genre usually produces. I wasn't disappointed. It held its own, according to what is expected from such films. Perhaps some of these reviews themselves need a 1-star rating for "Excessively unrealistic expectations". I mean geeminy, what were you expecting when you started watching this? ;D

One point about science fiction movies, is to impress the viewer with science or technology that could once be real. But in this movie nothing makes sense about science. Not speaking about the bad and slow plot with sometimes terrible unreal action performances.

Just to name a view paradox: -they are close to the sun, but are communicating on video phone in real time. The signal would take at least 7 minutes between the sun and earth. (later they correctly state that the impact would only be seen 7 to 8 minutes later on earth.) -As the engines don't work and they float around the moon they experience g forces! In reality they would only feel 0 gravity on board because the gravitation of the moon and the acceleration of the ship would cancel each other out. Same like a space ship in orbit. -How comes that its always daylight in USA and Afghanistan at the same time? -When he is activating the bomb manually in space (0 bar airpresion) he would explode. -the sun is 330000 times bigger than the earth so an impact would we like a tear drop into the oceans. And most probably the space ship would melt long time before it would hit anything solid. At least I don't know anything that wouldn't at 6000 kelvin. Even Ta4HfC5 already melts at 4488 K.

No spoiler. No hyperbole. Just a really poorly acted and poorly written work. In fairness, the lack of any reasonable budget is palpable throughout, with underwhelming sets and obvious inability to spend even modest money on scientific fact-checking.

Any positive reviews are clearly either family or Canadian members of the industry because there is simply nothing redeeming about this.

Acting - like a CBC drama series - wooden, two dimensional and forced throughout.

Writing - hackneyed and confused. The conflict between the two male leads is based on a simplistic less-than-made-for-TV concept, which only gets worse as their conflict continues.

As stated, the set design is cheap and the shuttle looks like something from Lost-in-Space - I kept waiting for someone to exclaim "Danger Will Robinson" (which, actually would have added an element of camp humour to an exceedingly dull and vapid film).

So - terrible in every sense. Nothing - and I mean nothing - to redeem it.

Why can't the casting director (if this nonsense had one) pick the lead actors that can speak clearly, or at least don't have any speech impediments? I'm talking about Anthony Lemke. I don't know why his bottom lip sticks out, or his jaw, or why his tongue doesn't work. But I would have thought that the director would request another take when this guy mumbles his lines.

Perhaps he - Lemke - thinks it is "Brando-esque" to mumble, to be incoherent, but I don't. It is a pain.

So for those of you who actually want to understand the mumblings of this lead actor... get the subtitles!

The reviews so far have fallen into the 'OMFG it's the worst thing EVAR' or 'OMFG it's a Stellar Masterpiece' camp. Both factions seem more interested in hyperbole than actual description. In reality it's not bad. Not great, but not bad. The FX for the space flight and solar stuff are actually pretty good. As for the rest, they did a decent job with a limited budget. Characterization isn't a mile deep, but hey, this is an action-drama, not Shakespeare. It's amazingly long, but that's not really a negative; you're getting more movie for your $;-). Current rating is lower than it deserves, it's a good 5.0-6.0. It won't change your life, but it's a decently entertaining flick. Watch without fear.