Customer Reviews

Supernova / Poseidon Adventure [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm writing this mostly to correct the impression given by a reviewer that this blu ray disc does not contain the entire miniseries. It certainly does contain both parts in their entirety. After watching part one the credits role and then part two starts automatically. It can also be accessed from the pop up menu at any time. The film itself is pretty good although a bit slow. There are too many characters to keep track of and the film would have been better if half an hour were edited out. IT also suffers a bit of an identity crisis. Is it science fiction or a serial killer stalker movie? It trys to be both with mixed results. Nice to see Luke Perry in the lead role. He does a fine job with this. Visual effects are fairly impressive CGI stuff. The transfer looks excellent and often almost three dimmensional. Colors are beautiul and vivid. There is some minor dirt on the print in two scenes but other than that it looks awesome. Sound is excellent uncompressed 5.1 There are interviews with the director, John Harrison and all of the cast. A trailer is also included. For such a bargain basement price, they did a very nice job with this Blu ray release. And once again, THE DISC DOES CONTAIN THE COMPLETE FILM.

SUPERNOVA is a tv miniseries that runs at almost three hours, and it's a case of less would have been more. The script by Steve Berman is so overloaded with extemporaneous subplots that the focus from the imminent disaster gets sidetracked a little too often. The whole thing with Luke Perry's wife witnessing a serial killer and then her testimony sending him to the death penalty is wholly unnecessary. Anyway, the main plot deals with an impending supernova discovered by brilliant scientist Peter Fonda, based on Perry's calculations. When all the predictions start occurring (migratory patterns change, telecommunications and blackouts, etc.), seems like the earth's goose is cooked. Disaster flick fans should be pleased with the decimation of such cities as St. Louis, Paris, Syndey and the Taj Mahal, and the computer generated effects of the sun's eruptions is visually beautiful if unrealistic. Of course, the nasty government gets involved with Tia Carrere as a Security Agent who whisks Perry and other scientists off in an attempt to prove or disprove Fonda's findings. Lance Henriksen struts his villainous stuff as a man who will be responsible for deciding who will live in underground facilities to repopulate the earth after the disaster, and Emma Samms is the maverick crusading reporter who is determined to let the public know the truth. The resolution of the supernova is kind of ridiculous, and the movie's climax focuses on the serial killer. All in all, it's not horrible, but it fails to give us what disaster movies should: impending doom for people we care or don't care about and this is where SUPERNOVA fizzles.

Supernova doesn't seem to quite know what it's trying to be and as a result never quite succeeds on any level. As a disaster epic, it can never quite match the visuals of big screen offerings that have dealt out similar levels of global destruction. The sequences of the sun's increasing activity are pretty enough to look at but never convince and feel disconnected from the rest of the action. And scenes of the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House being destroyed by giant fireballs descending from the sky are largely unnecessary, only further detracting from the believability of the whole endeavour with some average at best effects work. It's at its best when it presents the aftermath of the effects of the sun's activity on a smaller scale, emphasising the human drama amongst the chaos that ensues.

The science behind the storyline seems rather shaky at best, as evidenced by a key scene involving a piece of elementary and unconvincing mathematics. This could, however, be overlooked if the treatment of the scenario of a sun about to consume our solar system was in itself engaging. Here again, though, Supernova is only a partial success. The notion of an underground hive intended to ensure mankind's survival if life above ground were to become unsustainable is one of the more interesting themes on offer, and so it's a shame it's never fully explored. Instead, there are a number of subplots and situations of varying levels of interest. Of these, Shepard's ruminations on his island retreat are amongst the most poignant as he contemplates his life and work and awaits an end he deems inevitable; his final scene is poorly executed, however, and only detracts from what has gone before. And the plot surrounding a horribly clichéd escaped killer stalking Richardson's family is utterly pointless, providing a "climax" more befitting of a conventional thriller. Perhaps this sought to play safe and provide a recognisable climactic conflict for one of its protagonists, but at this point the movie seems to forget its own premise altogether.

In a variable cast, it is really only the ever-excellent Lance Henriksen who shines, lending sympathy and believable motivation in limited screen time to a character that might very easily have seemed one-dimensional. Luke Perry seems oddly miscast as Dr Richardson and never convinces the viewer of his academic credentials, and neither is his bond to the rest of his family ever properly established. This rendered their subplot all the more uninteresting. Overall, this is an entirely watchable Apocalyptic TV movie so long as you don't think too deeply about it or watch too closely. For the most part, though, it feels like a missed opportunity that could have taken much bolder decisions and been far more affecting as result. Lukewarm at best.

--Adam Chamberlain
Revelation Magazine

Peter Fonda is a wacky but brilliant astrophysicist. He has discovered that our sun is much older than previously believed and that it will go supernova in about a week. Fonda heads out to enjoy his final days without telling anyone. He did pass his findings to several other scientists around the world and that brings the US Government into play. Luke Perry worked with Fonda and everyone thinks he has the answers and knows where Fonda is. Meanwhile Fonda's predictions start to come true as the sun's behavior starts to cause havoc with magnetic fields and electronic communications.

Perry discovers that there are government plans to preserve humanity they just didn't expect such a complete disaster. But they start making their moves anyway. Perry's wife is terrified of a killer she survived and how is about to be executed. He escapes (no surprise there). Global conditions continue to worsen and the death toll begins to skyrocket. A supernova would destroy the entire solar system. The only hope is that Fonda made a mistake in his calculations. Will the world survive? Watch and find out.

I guess they didn't want to call this Nova (our sun isn't big enough to go supernova) but they did a good job of treating the story with a proper 'There will be no survivors' attitude an exploding sun would cause. The acting is pretty good while the effects are pretty lame considering what else Hallmark has created. Was the escaped killer sub-plot necessary? Probably not as such but it created more tension and stress for Perry. Other than calling the event a supernova there was a commitment to avoid science and scientific terminology for most of the story (makes it hard to pick holes in). For a disaster film this is better than the recent made-for-TV earthquake and storm films but not as well done as say The Day After Tomorrow. Check it out.

Wow. I am still in awe of just how bad this film was. The screenplay was a confused jumble of intersecting sub-plots, most of which made little, if any, sense. The entire scientific premise of the movie is so ridiculous that it would have to assume that the viewer has an IQ of a geranium in order to believe it. The acting is bad enough to almost be funny. The characters are inept, unlikable and overdramatized. There is a stereotypical, psycho-villain thrown into the plot that is played like something out of a bad 1950's comic book. The effects are... well, like something I could have created myself in a few seconds using Photoshop and a cheap, digital camcorder. The music score is just a bunch of recycled background trash that sounds like something from the cutting room floor of an adult movie. If this film had a director, he should rethink his choice of careers. Any director with a sense of decency would have burned this film before it had a chance to be developed. Even Ed Wood's movies are more realistic and certainly more enjoyable by comparison. I've seen a lot of bad films in my day, and I can usually find at least one thing about each of them that I enjoyed, or at least believed. Not so, with Supernova. A more fitting title would have been "Black Hole", since that's where it seemed like my time had gone after watching this trainwreck of a movie.

These are two Hallmark mini-series packaged together. They're not great art but I didn't hate them as much as other reviewers. Supernova is about our own sun having a bad day with some top scientists thinking it will go supernova. In the extras we get interviews with the actors and director. The director said he decided to set it in Australia to make it truley global in scope. This really hurt the film because some elements are very specific to the US... like a serial killer getting the death sentence or a witness buying a gun for protection. Despite the many flaws I thought it was watchable. I also found something to applaud... the actor who portrays the serial killer really did a great job. I give Supernova 3 stars.

I take a dim view of remakes. When you remake The Poseidon Adventure you invite comparison with the original and you eliminate too much surprise. This remake is weak. Hallmark suddenly cared about improbable science and changed the cause to a terrorist attack rather than a mid-ocean tidal wave. The cover says it has 40 minutes of unseen footage. I'm not sure that they did us a favor. This cast and this budget would have been better spent on some original material. This is a weaker film and I only give it 2 stars.

Two films in blu-ray for only $17.00 as of this writing? I think it was a fair deal. I'm still building mu blu-ray collection and I kinda like these double features. On the other hand, I don't expect great films with these double features either. If you are only after 4 or 5 stars films, keep looking. But if you have room in your collection for a couple of B movies maybe this set is worth a shot.

I have often (and happily even) lowered the "how-good-it-has-to-be" bar to accommodate my undying desire to watch disaster flicks. In order to endure the first hour of this one, I had to bury it. It's gone still, in fact. I have never seen nor even IMAGINED a film as boring as this one. The story was ridiculously dull--it couldn't even manage to be funny for its sheer stupidity factor. It really was, just...boring. It's basically a movie about people running around trying to decide if there's a solar crisis or not. Lots of trips to the pc, a completely unrelated cutscene subplot with a convict escaping his transport only to without reason kill the transport driver and his partner. I remember looking over at the other people watching it with me and asking.. "For real? We just left the solar 'let's-watch-and-see-what-happens-to-the-sun-pc-central-room' to see some psycho kill people? And this relates to this disaster how?" Good grief just remembering it makes me want to yawn or pull my hair out and since Rapunzel I'm not... I'll settle for the yawn. If you want to see a truly stupid freakin' movie... watch "Troll 2"... that'll mess your cerebral function up for awhile but at least you'll get a chuckle from the sheer idiocy of it. This one tho? I wouldn't. Really. Even stupid would have been better than this sleepfest.

This story has a great potential to make people aware that the universe is a violent place. Here on earth, we think things are forever. Our sun will die one day, and all life as we know it will perish. The movie moves along pretty nicely, but the ending was a little disappointing. It has enough entertainmet value alright, but oops! we were wrong? That is great for those that always want a happy ending. Sure, the end most likely will not come for millions, if not billions of years, but the end of everything as we know it might make people appreciate the planet we dwell on.

This time, the sun is our enemy. The very thing that nourishes life on this planet becomes the potential instrument to end all life as we know it. A piece of a planet that has been traveling thru space for millions of years collides with the sun. The result is sunspots run amok.

The title of the film is an attention-grabber, to be sure, but it's mis-leading on a couple of counts. First of all, during the film a young astronomer tells a reporter that the sun "will expand until it envelops the inner solar system, including Earth. This is known as a Supernova." This is fudged science in a couple of different ways. First off, a Supernova is when a star blows up (with the magnitude of something like a trillion trillion trillion times the force of the combined nuclear arsenal of all the world's militaries, I might add).

Secondly, the fact that the sun will someday expand and engulf the inner solar system is TRUE. Of course, it will be something like 5 billion years down the road. It will happen after the hydrogen fuel is used up & the sun will begin burning helium instead.

The biggest problem I have with the movie writers inserting this scenario into the movie is that they seemed to just "throw it in" without much of a cogent reason to do so. The focus of the film was on these huge sunspots that were wreaking havoc with electronics, with some nasty expulsed "fireballs" from the sun hitting the earth. They talked of fearing one of these fireballs would shear off the atmosphere. It is not in debate that if something went awry with the sun ever so slightly, it could lead to the destruction of the earth. Their "throwing in" the bit about the sun's expansion was simply superfluous.

Third, our sun will never, ever go Supernova (i.e.: blow up) because it is simply too small. It doesn't have enough mass for the reaction to occur. After it expands to being the size of a small red giant (or so?) it will then shrink & end its life as a brown dwarf star. Only big bad stars go Supernova - not our beloved sun!

For what it is, this is a pretty good end-of-the-world movie. To be sure, the movie paints with a VERY wide brush. It tries to give you the reaction of people from many different walks of life in a situation where the earth itself only has a week or so left to live. Some may tire of the attention given to some of the subplots, including one in particular that is almost another story all by itself.

Still, I did like some of the introspective, "this is it" moments where the characters reflected on all that they had left un-done in life. However, I should give fair warning that there are also some un-anticipated disturbing scenes of violence against women. Just so you know going in.....

The cast is pretty good, featuring the lovely Tia Carrere and Luke Perry. This is one of the very few times I've seen Perry since he graduated from BEVERLY HILLS 90210. It's also quite a different role for Perry to portray a braniac astrophysicist, but he pulls it off quite well.

These days, there is one thing more horrifying than the sun throwing a solar temper-tantrum which may squelch life on earth. What's that? you ask. Well, it's having the Bush administration in-charge of such a crisis situation. If they re-made the movie today they could add on that little tidbit. That alone would make the movie scarier than HALLOWEEN and have crowds running in a panic from the theatres in throngs!

Horrible, horrible, horrible! Bad acting combined with bad special effects, terrible science and a pathetic script make this impossible to watch.