Thursday, April 24, 2008

Real life causes massive delay!

So yeah, I haven't abandoned this place. Just been too busy, and not in the right mindset to do this over the past couple weeks. BUT, no need to fear, things are evening out a bit, and I should have a new review up in the next few days. Thanks for your patience, and if anyone wants to see a review of a specific disaster movie, just let me know (I'll see if I can find it).

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Absolute Zero (2005)

A couple weeks ago, we had 20 inches of snow in the middle of March. So it seems appropriate to watch a movie about the Earth's weather going haywire. The reason for the rapid climate change may not what you might think it would be.

With a movie made in 2005, the obvious answer would be GLOBAL WARMING, and that's hinted at in the first few minutes of the movie, but our hero, David, played by the Lawnmower Man himself Jeff Fahey believes otherwise. The theory put forth is that the Earth's magnetic poles are shifting, and when the polarity hits "neutral", or directly over the equator, that the temperature plunges to...ABSOLUTE ZERO (clever huh?). And how does he know all this? Because *CATCHPHRASE ALERT* "Science is never wrong."

So David, and a crew of scientists in various fields are sent to Antarctica to study abnormal temperature spikes, and a mysterious cave that InterSCI, the big bad science group in it for the money, believes may hold some information. So, the big struggle clearly is the cliched fight between those who want to do the right thing for humanity, and those who want to do what it takes to make a buck. Even to the point of sacrificing their own scientists.

I have to be brutally honest here, this movie is a series of cliches, questionable (at best) science, and horrific overacting by Jeff Fahey. Seriously, Fahey couldn't deliver "Hi, how are you today?" in this movie without it sounding like the most dire thing that has ever come out of a person's mouth.

While down in Antarctica, the scientific crew gets attacked by a freak snow storm. Somehow, despite being the world's best and brightest scientific minds...in the face of a bad snow storm (including a weird snow spike that manages to kill two people by hitting their truck really really hard), only David manages to survive this storm. Amazing how that happens.

The focus of the rest of the movie shifts to sunny Miami, but even there things aren't what they are supposed to be. Things like fishermen pulling frozen crabs from the ocean, despite 90+ degree temperatures. Then, all of a sudden... a glacier shows up in sunny Miami! Yep, things are getting curious.

While InterSCI is trying to play the Military for unlimited funding...and assuring them that we have a couple hundred years left to "fix" this problem. David a couple lab techs and an old friend (Jeff) discover the truth...we have less than 4 hours before...ABSOLUTE ZERO!!! Because, science is never wrong.

Here we get to the disaster part of the movie...the epic snowstorm that's going to start freezing part of the Earth. What I find amazing: this storm freezes the oceanfront almost instantly...yet just a mile or so away where our heroes are...it's still bright and sunny.

At this point, the laugh out loud death of the week (TM) happens when Jeff (the old friend of David) is trying to escape with his daughter, and gets hit by a spinning palm tree. Through the front windshield of his car. While Sophie (the daughter) makes it to safety, Jeff is apparantly pinned down by a couple leaves, and then is victimized by another snow spike. Amazing how these things only hit the people in vehicles.

Now, with less than 3 hours left before...no, I'm not doing it again, ok I will ABSOLUTE ZERO!!! they decide that David's lab is the safest place to be...apparently his lab can withstand absolute zero temperatures. Only his lab...of course. The entire world is turning into a Popsicle , and his lab is safe from all harm. Even his windows to the outside world will be fine...because science is never wrong?

What follows is a whole bunch of what I like to call "Adventure for adventure's sake." There's lots of running around, and jumping down elevator shafts, and going out into the freezing cold...for not much reason at all. All this action does is raise the body count, and adds a little tension to an otherwise dull film.

Finally, we get to absolute zero time, and well, it kind of happens...and then it ends and the Earth is different, but ok. And that's pretty much it. There were a couple attempts at adding some romance, and extra emotion, but really it just lies there. It's just an attempt at dressing up a pretty lousy story.

Mediocre at best story, mediocre acting (with the noticable exception of Jeff Fahey's horrible overacting), bad CGI, and just some very shady science...despite it never being wrong leads this movie to get a D. Too bad, because I really liked the idea of this movie, but was sorely disappointed at its execution.

From extreme cold, to extreme heat...next time Solar Crisis. Charleton Heston and Jack Palance in the same movie...you can practically feel the testosterone dripping off this disc.