William Rich
A masterpiece of classic juvenile science fiction. Captures the pure joy and innocence of those glorious summer afternoon porch swing reads of youth. Excellent casting, special effects, and overall outstanding production values provide an easy and thoroughly enjoyable and healing suspension of belief adventure. I am researching the production crew to find other similar productions. The 10 line review minimum seems somewhat heavy handed. I personally appreciate quality over quantity. Having just finished the movie, I am simply trying to capture the good feelings from my youth that the movie gave me, as simply and honestly as possible. I simply hope that others will see the movie and come away similarly happy. To my surprise, it appears my line counting English teacher of my youth has also invaded my revelries. Alas, even now I still have mandatory lines to complete. My cat seemed to enjoy the soundtrack as it snoozed near by. Hopefully, this will be line 10 -- yes!
mariost
IMO sci-fi has two parts...'science' and 'fiction'…this series misses both, Lets start with the 'fiction' part slash plot ….government hi-tech experiment goes bad…sun is going ham on planet earth…human hero 'bad-boy-knows-it-all' saves earth from the sun…then he knows how to restart the core…then he restarts the core with a machine that he kept in his barn … and finally he gets the girl!My personal metric is which of this ''original story'' couldn't have been written by a 10 year old...verdict: not much … have to give credit though for the 'really fictional' parts i could spot.. the fact that he did all this while getting chased by the US military – and the part that he could operate a multimillion-high-tech-sun-magnetosphere-disruption- facility with just his daughter and her boyfriend … ah and the president dies of falling debris because he was giving a speech under a half collapsed building <- this was a good one About the 'science' part -Not there- And no ..you don't have to be or pretend to be a scientist to figure out that downtown Chicago, Big Ben and Athens is ridiculously unlikely to be destroyed by satellite debris. Or if you turn a blind eye on the solar- flare-induced-6.5-earthquake, how can you not wonder why the heck the epicenter was somewhere in East Coast US? I watch sci-fi and enjoy it because it could show a glimpse of what might happen after 50-100-10000000 with a lots of sauce of course, but with some respect to some scientific hard facts .. this film was about what could never happen in a trillion years in the most remote parallel universe.Acting was alright I guess ...
Warloq
At the outset, let it be understood that there is virtually no suspension of disbelief to be found in this sci-fi folly.Science, and science fiction fans more importantly, understand that some scientific capital must be invested in a science fiction narrative to make it at least partially believable. No such investment occurred here, and therein lies the beginning of a bailout that never happened.The absence of suspension of disbelief is well supported. There clearly was a vulgar absence of scientific research within the arena's of the scientific disciplines upon which the (weak) foundation of this cinematic effort was based.Enough of this. Sci-fi fans of any stripe will understand the elements that are lacking. And that would be all of them. Satellites falling from orbit to impact Earth within MINUTES of critical solar events? International Space Station hitting the Earth and delivering an impact equivalent to the destruction delivered by hundreds of megatons of nuclear bombs? The I.S.S. is pretty much comprised of what amounts to little more than aluminum foil. The electro-magnetic effects of solar events assailing the Earth in mere seconds?It's hard not to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of these film elements. Oh wait. I did laugh. Out loud.The acting was careless and amateurish at best. Even veteran actor Matthew Modine delivered a performance that was stiff and over-rehearsed. The characters of the President and Vice President of the United States were just plain spooky and damned creepy. Personally, I feel the characters of the Prez and the Veep required lobotomies. That may seem a radical concept, but they *are* playing US politicians -- the majority of whom have already been lobotomized, I'd venture to guess. If you watch this film to its conclusion, I have the contact number for Lobotomies-R-Us.
Gin-ster
My review is very unfair because I have only seen the first half. It is extremely formulaic - the only smart guy is in disgrace, and has a beautiful, plucky daughter (don't they always?); the ESTABLISHMENT is full of weasels who are interfering with solving the problem, and the science is beyond ludicrous. But hey, it's good dumb fun. I wouldn't wait in line to see it, nor make space in my busy schedule, nor pay extra, but as a filler after you need to "come down" from an episode of Breaking Bad, if you like B-grade sci fi and/or disaster movie stuff, it works just fine. Strangely, the acting isn't all that bad. On the one hand, there are rug-chewing villains (the slime literally rolls off the "Secretary" whose self-serving unwillingness to listen to scientific advice causes the catastrophe; the hero's ex-wife's new husband is an unrelenting sleaze, etc.) But scientist/hero Modine is quite good in his role, and the scientist who unleashed the disaster (under pressure from the "Secretary") is actually pretty good too, coming across as sort of a normal person (well, normal for someone who has just destroyed the planet). Anyway, in the "good dumb fun" category I give this high marks. Others have compared it to "Eve of Destruction" and like "Eve" I have only seen one half, but will gladly view the second halves when the opportunity arises.
