This film only garners a measly 1.7/10 on the IMDb across 2600 reviews so it must be worth watching, even if only for the odd ironic chuckle. Sadly it fails even on this front and, even worse, it even tries to gets some Christian values in your face to boot!
We open with five young people sitting around a campfire discussing their relationships. Once decides to go for a piss - HUGE mistake - as he is instantly flattened by a meteorite. The rest panic and flee, with another hapless youth falling into a large lava pit and disappearing.
We cut to our hero, Jason, a USDA Ranger, whatever that is - not a cop, but he has blue lights on his truck. He’s called to the station by a colleague who doesn’t tell him what to expect. He arrives to find the station under a large meteorite - well, he didn’t expect that! As the two look at the carnage, slightly non-plussed it has to be said, another meteorite flies overhead and destroys the city of Monterrey. Even this doesn’t elicit much of a reaction and certainly no pressure wave, fall out etc. To be fair there is a handful of ashes that fall from the sky, but that’s not much to show for the 100,000 reported dead.
Meanwhile down in L.A. four hot girls are watching the carnage erupt on TV. One of them, Lindsay, is the daughter of Jason and is failing to contact her mother Ashley who is the ex-wife of Jason. Keeping up? Eventually Mom makes contact and she and Jason agree to head south to meet up with the daughter - they have heard that the world only has four days left as an ‘extinction starter’ meteor is on the way. This is described as being the size of Texas - strange that ‘Armageddon’ used the same comparison - I guess its like us comparing things to the size of Wales.
As the ‘action’ takes place we are aware of strange events happening. No, not that this guff secured funding, but that people are disappearing. It’s almost like the actors are getting called back to their regular jobs at McDonalds. The once couple, Jason and Ashley, head off on their perilous road trip which is full of dangers such as land slides, tornadoes and tsunamis, which thankfully for the budget, mostly happen off camera. Even the rescue helicopter is heard and not seen - someone must have spent that day’s budget on a cup of coffee.
As they near L.A. the disappearances start to increase and Lindsay’s boyfriend is spirited away from his bath tub hidey hole by a very localised tornado in a crescendo of religious music - only to be found outside five minutes later in a wrong foot that fooled no one - more religion is coming! Soon it’s down to just Dad to find his daughter before the big one hits - will he find her? Let us pray!
I should have been altered to the likely quality of this film when I saw Asylum’s logo on the credits. They are famous for piggybacking big Hollywood films with cheap copycats and this is no different - apart from the added extra of plenty of religious stuff.
You can’t expect much, and on that front it certainly delivers. You will have never seen any of the cast in anything else and this film appears to have killed any acting careers they may of had stone dead - and rightly so. Some characters look like they have wandered on set when delivering pizza and others deliver performances that would shame a porno movie.
The special effects are dire and are the worst kind of painted on CGI you can imagine. The ‘tsunami’, which is seen from the air, was just like a dark line being drawn on a map. You also get characters running from meteor showers that leave small puffs of smoke and nothing else. Their terror looks genuine however, but that’s probably just in anticipation of the reviews.
The religious angle is in your face from the start with people all discussing their faith from the get go. Our hero and his wife split when their daughter died and Ashley tearfully admits to not having been to church since that sad day. I say ‘sad’ but the actress displayed more of a ‘meh’ vibe. Anyway, one of the few highlights is when, after hiding in a church, she stops for a quick pray only to be struck by lightning - subtle stuff!
This is a total howler with a punch you in the face message and has no merit whatsoever. ‘Pray with me’ is the final line - pray you are never condemned to see this one!
The Tag Line : End of Days? End of Film Please. 12%
