Customer Reviews

Earthstorm

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Disclaimer: They didn't actually call it NASA. It was the ASA or something. But we know who they meant!!

EARTHSTORM is an Armageddon 'homage' starring one of the lesser Baldwins. Not Billy I don't think. That doesn't narrow it down one darn bit, does it?

Giant uncharted asteroid hits the far side of the moon. Apparently just hours later debris starts whacking into us (you'd think it would be headed AWAY from us. I'd also think it would take a while to get here. I'd also think that if it did get here like a Domino's Pizza, in 30 minutes or less, the story would end right there. But go figure). NASA covers up the fact that meteors are hitting us and wiping out cities and that there's a crack in the moon and a huge halo of Giant Space Rice Krispie debris you can see from Earth but many people figure it out by hearing rumors.

Demolition guy Baldwin as Bruce Willis is blowing up a building. As they're about to push the button, everybody wearing heavy clothes and helmets and flack jackets except the extremely hot female assistant who's in shorts, suddenly the 9th floor blows up. This causes the entire system of explosives to become 'unbalanced' and wackiness ensues. Since they can't stop the countdown, Bruce Baldwin runs up to the 9th floor (with a pack of DYNAMITE!), finds pillar 8A which is what blew up (and is totally unscathed), sticks a new pack of explosives on it (completely fixing the problem, except the problem is in no way fixed), finds the homeless guy who set off the explosives (and who is also completely unscathed) and races out of the building with seconds to spare. They head off to their next job in Baltimore, which is almost immediately hit by Giant Space Rice Krispie meteorite debris.

Meanwhile some red headed scientist portrayed by a woman who's acting training came from doing makeovers in the local mall, and who is expending all of her 'talent' trying to hide her accent, realizes her father predicted this exactly, but was driven out of the business and to his death by evil government scientist Dirk Benedict. NASA calls her in because nobody will listen to her.

I'm not really sure what happened to the moon. At various points in the story it's shifted it's orbit, the crap is coming from the asteroid, the crap is coming from the moon, there's a rift a 100 times the size of the grand canyon in the moon and the crap is spewing out of THAT, and anything that leaves the far side of the moon for whatever reason whacks us about a half an hour later.

Part of this is explained when cute shorts demo girl finds a hunk of the moon (after dodging into a canvas tent to avoid a major Giant Space Rice Krispie meteorite impact about 50 feet away) just laying there in Baltimore, a big hunk clearly made out of foam that nobody handles like it weighs more than an empty coffee cup, and it turns out we were wrong about what the moon was made of all along -- it's hitting us so hard because it's composed of uranium. In the form of Giant Space Rice Krispies.

NASA decides the only way to stop the moon from bombarding us (at this point Mexico City is suddenly destroyed, but nobody mentions it again) is to fly up to the moon and set off nukes and seal the fissure. Of course, Baldwin must go with them, for only he can push the button.

Red decides that since the moon is all magnetic and everything, we should use a special magnetic bomb that no one has ever built instead. Of course, Baldwin must go with them, for only he can push the button. Of a bomb he's never heard of the theory behind or seen, as it doesn't exist.

Starbuck vetoes the plan. Through the entire movie he walks in whenever they're planning something; nobody at NASA *ever* closes a door.

They take off in a space shuttle, which despite the nukes being the size of a couple of suitcases, only holds 3 people; cute female pilot, random astronaut, Bruce Baldwin. Random astronaut is immediately knocked out for the duration of the flight. Shuttle has gravity, and a continuous floor between the flight deck and the cargo bay, almost as though it was a left over set from a high school stage play.

Shuttle lifts off, jettisons its SRBs and liquid fuel tanks together, and, with main engines still roaring, flies to the moon, dodging and weaving incoming Giant Space Rice Krispie rocks, accelerating the whole way. Granted, they have auxiliary strap on nuclear engines that no one had ever built or tried before as well.

They get to the moon, fly down to the surface (while this shuttle has internal gravity, external gravity doesn't affect it at all) and sort of hover.

Cute shorts demo chick shows up at NASA with the very light rock. Analysis indicates it's uranium, which means Starbuck was wrong, and they should have sent the magnetic bomb instead of the nukes. The Earth is doomed.

NASA brainstorms and figures out how to take unused parts from the shuttle's communication systems to turn the nukes into a magbomb. Bruce Baldwin does this while cute pilot hovers.

Starbuck realizes red haired scientist did all the math wrong, and they need 100 times more bomb. The Earth is doomed.

Starbuck saves the day by realizing they happen to have auxiliary nuke engines strapped to the outside of the shuttle, that Bruce Baldwin can get to, somehow.

Baldwin realizes the new charge needs to be set off in a new location. The new location? THE CENTER OF THE MOON! Yes, they need to fly the shuttle to . . . THE CORE!!!!!

Luckily, the fissure goes all the way to the center of the moon. They fly down, dump the bomb, eject their engines, and, main engines still blasting away, race for the surface as the mag bomb goes off, the fissure sucks itself shut, the moon "heals itself" and returns to it's proper orbit, and all the incoming Giant Space Rice Krispie stuff that was about to destroy the Earth is just . . forgotten about. Cute pilot, engines STILL GOING FULL THROTTLE, despite the fact that she left the fuel tank back on Earth and the strap on engines in the moon, races back as unhurt extra astronaut comes to. BTW, all this apparently happened in about half an hour, as cute shorts girl hasn't even gone to the ladies' room to wipe the soot off her pert little nose yet.

Back on Earth, everybody loves everybody, Starbuck is forgiven, Red's dad is vindicated, Red goes back to work for NASA, Red and Bruce Baldwin pair off, Red's assistant who didn't have enough of a part to matter and was in love with her scores with cute shorts girl, mostly 'cause there wasn't anybody else with enough lines to pair her with except Starbuck who stoically rode back to Washington, and the weather is all fine, and nobody cares that Mexico City is gone.

The End.

Forget the physics and logistics of the situation and forget that Stephen Baldwin is known for being in cheesy movies. To my surprise this is actually an excellent movie. The acting was not the best, but I was expecting that. The director was obviously very good and turned what normally would have been a bad movie into something worth watching. This is unusual in these types of movies and I want to say congratulations to Terry Cunningham for pulling it off. The real question is would I be willing to add this to my personal movie collection, and the answer is yes.
As to the comments by "rewt"; Acting: B, technical affects: A, physics and logistics: F (rewt was right there, but most people are ignorant about that). It gets 4 points from me (again to my surprise), because I want to watch it again.

I saw this on 'SyFy' and I like cheesy sci-fi movies, but this is missing that certain something. The review by 'anim8rfsk' was spot on and hilarious. Normally I like movies with "Giant Space Rice Krispies" and 'drop-a-nuke-in-the-center-of-the-moon-to-make-it-heal-itself' type of thing because of the silliness, but this time it's just a little flat. I could watch this again, but I certainly wouldn't pay for it.

There are alot of negative reviews of this movie, but in comparison to the standard Syfy fare (mega shark vs giant octopus)!? this looks like it was a Spielberg production.

There is an actual plot and the director keeps it moving along.

For Syfy this makes it a standout.

This movie has all the standard characters and clichés.
Most rogue comets head straight for earth in all good disaster movies. Well surprise, this animal decided to hit something else.

We have the misunderstood and of course disbelieved scientist.
We have the immobile and disastrous decision-making government representative.
We have the structural explosives expert who does not realize his potential until he is challenged.
We have the up and coming assistant who waffles under pressure, and several other standard disaster movie characters.

They all do the standard things and have the standard conversations.
There is a tad of originality in the quantity and timing of overlapping miscalculations and unforeseen complications.

If you have spare time and nothing better to do this presentation is at least not purposely campy.

Meteor

that's only one of the possible titles for this silly "science" fiction drivel.
I'm glad I spent only a dollar on this one for a rental from a machine at grocery store. Picture this: Struck by an asteroid the moon cracked and begins to fall apart. Young carrier astrophysics woman, digging out daddy's rejected thesis, saves the world together with a building destruction specialist. You read right. How: Oh, simple: Space shuttle boosted by nukes flies to the moon dodging asteroids, they make a trip a la Star Wars through the canon formed by the crack and deposit a device that was hand assembled on board from parts they didn't really need (see Apollo 13). The destruction specialist on the new job fires up the device, which then, by some totally hideous crank physics, generates enough current in the iron core of the moon so the induced magnetic field becomes stronger than the usual gravity. Moon saved. Earth saved. - What a baloney! Acting: D, technical effects: D-, physics F. It gets 2 points because I managed to sit through the whole thing.

This was a lame movie. Major rip off of Deep Impact, Armageddon (my favorite movie) and probably some others as well. I don't usualy post reviews but I thought I will this time. I am a disaster movie fanatic, and this movie is right up my alley, but it was lame. Not even going to waste my money on this one at all. If you are a disaster fanatic like me, and haven't seen it, don't. It's not worth it.

There are several clues to the quality of a movie. Directors, writers, and stars are the top three. Any one of the three can salvage poor performances by the other two, although the scale of quality usually swings in the opposite direction, with the pivotal characters sliding into the gutter of poor performance together. On a percentage basis, Steven Baldwin has probably ridden more mediocre films into the shadowy ravine of schlock than any other modern talented actor you can name. Yes, he is talented, but always falls short of transferring that quality to the screen. Like the cover of the dvd, this movie cannot make up its mind what it wants to be: scifi, horror, scifihorror, or what. And just when it seems to have found its way, Baldwin blocks the way. Like most Baldwin flicks, this movie is worth what you will pay for it, $5.00 to $10.00, and will pass the time you spend to watch it with only a few yawns, but in the end,you will care about as much for this film as it appears that Baldwin does. ho-hum.

The Earthstorm movie is one of the best I've seen around every time I watch it I'm always on the edge of my seat. The graphics of the movie is the extreme. The actors and actoresses that protrail the characters are the best stars to do that movie.

I'm a new Dirk Benedict fan. I started watching old tv shows online, including Battlestar Galactica, and now the A-Team. Now I'm looking for Dirk Benedict movies. I laughed out loud all the way through anim8rfsk's review, it's hilarious! I'm going to get this movie because of your review! I sort of wished he got a girl too. I'm pre-rating this based on your review. Please suggest more Dirk Benedict movies for me! I like him best so far as Starbuck.