Alerte météore

TheSTORY-0.5

Unfortunately, it's the story that carries a film. Even if the story is fantastical, such as this, it needs to have a semblance of reality to make it believable in the viewers' eyes. This, I am sad to say, doesn't.

The writers, Neil Elman and Colin Reese do have a good idea. Stopping the world from turning and pulled out of its rotation around the sun. However, from here on in its by-the-book disaster movie fodder. A family apart have to fight to get back to one another. Stereotypical characters and events. Even the military is stereotyped as the bad guys of the piece.

This is a shame as the story could have been so much better if Elman and Reese had used their imagination a bit more and had done a little more investigation into their phenomena.

theDIRECTION-1

At least Steven Daniels does a better job with the direction. Though it's not too brilliant it is watchable. Even the special effects, at times, are decent... though there are some dire ones thrown in as well (when the budget was running out).

theTEMPO-1

It's good that Daniels uses a couple of different speeds in the film as it keeps the audience from being too bored or thinking too much about the silly storyline. For the main part of the movie, we move along at a steady trot and when the action picks up we shift to a steady gallop. The word here though is steady. There is a definite feeling of averageness and of "seeing it all before" about this film. That, though, is understandable if, like me, you enjoy a good disaster.

theACTING-1

Unfortunately, due to the characters being a little stale the actors don't have much to work worth. They do, however, try their best with their portrayals and, largely, come across well. In fact, their portrayals help to lift this story out of the quagmire a tad.

theGRATIFICATION-0.75

Even though the direction and acting lift the film up the story drags it back down to below average. I enjoyed some of the special effects and a couple of humorous scenes. But I cannot find it in my heart to recommend this movie to anyone. There are a lot more disasters out there that are more enjoyable than this.

theSCORE-4.25

Come on over to my Disastrous and The Final Frontier lists and see where this turkey sits on my chart of disaster films. You should, at least, find a better one to watch.

Not to sure this should be called a sci-fi film as such, maybe more a small budget disaster film than anything.

Certainly nothing great to say about this TV film except acting was acceptable. But feels more like a generic cheaply made Hallmark Channel drama film to fill 90 minutes on a Sunday afternoon than anything.

The given situation that the planet turning on its axis so much and spinning out of orbit and yet parts of the planet pretty much unaffected (barring meteors and weather storms) is highly unrealistic and lacks any scientific basis to the given situation to make enjoying this film really possible. So it makes difficult to accept that there is any believable aspect to this story in any form. Which then begs the question as to the type of audience the film sees its target audience demographics?.

I'm guessing this could be seen more as showcase film for actors and budding CGI artists seeing as there was some reasonable efforts on the CGI front.

Will very, very quickly repeat what was said for the equally awful 'Destruction: Los Angeles', as what is about to be said applies for 'Earthfall' too. Just in case anybody wonders or is wondering, there is no personal bias against low-budget films. There never has been regardless of what people might think reading past reviews that have seen me be quite critical. There are good ones out there. Nor is there bias against disaster films, again there are some good ones, despite what has been said about some in the past.

Even when taking it for what it is and what it tried to be, 'Earthfall' just does not work on any level. Not even for novelty value, because one is left feeling bored and insultingly frustrated to be getting any unintentional entertainment. Had absolutely no problem with it being made on a low budget with hasty time constraints and was expecting the production values to not be great as such, there has never been the mentality of if a film is low budget it is immediately bad. Not the case at all. It is when it looks and feels like those involved didn't try and that no effort, care or enthusiasm went into any of the components when it bothers me. That's how it felt watching 'Earthfall'. When a film is low budget and done in a short space of time, yet either may lack a little visually but comes off surprisingly well in most other areas or works on most levels and still also looks good (and there are numerous examples of both), it is proof to me that a film's budget shouldn't be an excuse for how the film overall turns out.

Taking the budget into account and knowing full well not to expect high art as it is not the type of film, 'Earthfall' is an example of a film that is so cheaply made you seriously question why they even tried. The editing is choppy and blurry, to the point of inducing nausea, and the special effects have a very fake and unfinished feel and would be more at home in a low-budget movie from twenty years ago. The scenery is too compact and there is a constant dreariness and lack of focus in the photography. Anybody fussy about continuity will have a field day spotting all the errors, 'Earthfall' is loaded with them. The music is intrusive and at odds with the mood and action with no exceptions.

Direction shows no style or urgency, and a lack of control is obvious frequently too. The story is a major failing, there is no fun, tension, suspense or excitement, just non-stop dumbness, predictability and erratic pacing (both rushed and run of the mill that the film feels very blandly generic, lifeless and far-fetched). The disaster sequences are nauseatingly edited and have no thrills or suspense whatsoever where one never feels the extent of the damage, one is too busy being distracted by the bogus improvisatory-feeling science, dire at best effects, idiotic events and character behaviours as well as hitting their heads on walls in annoyance to get anything out of them.

Furthermore, the script constantly feels awkward and almost as if the writers had little to no idea of how to make a film script make any kind of sense, give it any kind of flow, any kind of momentum or the ability to treat the audience with respect, so overboard the cheesiness gets. The characters have no development to them and infuriate in how stupidly and obnoxiously, with no logic in sight, they behave throughout. The acting is a mess of phoned in and over compensated with no exception, citing who gives the worst performance of the lot is hard as they are all as terrible as each other.

Overall, another disaster. 1/10 Bethany Cox

I managed to sit through around 20 minutes of this film before the appalling script, rather poor acting and unimpressive special effects proved too much for me.

Some of the early dialogue was abysmal and totally unconvincing which made the characters saying it also unconvincing. I couldn't find one central character with whom I could invest or relate too - a fatal flaw in any movie of this type.

I watch a lot of films covering many genres and like sci-fi especially but after being spoilt by TV series like Falling Skies and Defiance - to mention two examples - the mediocrity of this offering was highlighted even more.

I almost never give up on a film but in this case I really didn't care what happened as I have better things to do with my life.

I'm sure others may enjoy it - but not me.

Sorry but I can't keep quiet about this one. It's just god awful. Everything about it is terrible. The acting is probably the best part and after about 30 seconds you realize that it sucks. Even the actors seem to know that the story is terrible, they show no interest in their parts and obviously just want to get paid and leave. The writer has no concept of physics or anything to do with science for that matter. The special effects are cringeworthy. Sure it's a low budget film but that is no excuse, there are some really good low budged movies and this is definitely not one of them. Whomever gave it a 10 out of 10.... well I'm glad you liked it... I didn't.