A disaster is on its way! A comet has gone rogue, changing direction after a brief encounter with Mars. The reason? Some kind of anomaly is in near-Earth orbit and its huge gravitational pull is messing up our galactic neighbourhood. All life on Earth is at risk as a result, leading to panic stricken citizens causing havoc and destruction worldwide. Not that we get to see much of this, because the budget doesn’t stretch that far, but the thought is there at least.
Cue some absolutely awful CGI effects – among them the comet in space, some Aurora Borealis-style effects in the sky, and some equally dodgy performances at the same time. Not that everyone is bad, but Stuart Rafferty never seems to be capable of expressing any emotion other than mild amusement. No matter what threat he faces, or his budding relationship with Lindsay (Kristen Quintrall, looking slightly too old for the part and reduced to crying a lot), his emotional range and facial expressions remain almost identical throughout.
As you might expect (it’s a SyFy production after all), the brightest brains in the world need the assistance of a group of normal, everyday people who just happen to know how to solve the problem. Chief among them is the autistic Terry (Rhett Giles), a genius who ultimately figures out a method of preventing the unfolding disaster. Not before half of the planet is ripped apart of course – much like Independence Day the rest of the world sits back and waits for the Americans to save the day.
As for the title? It sits somewhere far below Quantum Leap and Quantum of Solace in terms of quality. I bought a box set of weather-related low budget disaster films, and of the four films in that set this is the only one that I was able to find on IMDB with this as its original title. That came as quite the surprise. Actually, I’m lying. It’s not surprising at all.
Gigi Edgley, of Farscape fame, offers the closest you’ll get to a big name star. She is Trish, a scientist of rock star proportions with a streak of punk green in her hair. Her performance is quirky, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve ever seen her as the blue-skinned Chiana. Despite these quirks, her character is little more than an exposition machine in the grand scheme of things, there is very little to the character.
There are a few twists and turns heading into the final act and a last, desperate attempt at stopping the anomaly from destroying the Earth, but they actually end up amounting to nothing thanks to a deus ex machina ending that hits the reset button. It manages to do so in a far more irritating way than seven years of Star Trek Voyager managed to achieve. It wouldn’t be so bad if this had been raised a little earlier in the story and clearly signposted for the audience, but that would possibly be asking too much. Still, it’s better than most of SyFy’s usual efforts, and while that isn’t exactly a glowing reference it will have to do.
Score: 2/5
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNVV5n0N_hU]
