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Movie Review by The Gravedigger
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09.15.09
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A scientist (Christopher Lloyd) at an observatory in Baja, California, discovers that an asteroid is on collision course with the Earth. It is a "planet killer", about sixty miles in diameter. In the opening sequence we see it knocked out of its regular orbit by a comet. Now, the scientist and his plucky assistant Imogene must get the information of its trajectory to the authorities so they can nuke it out of the sky.
However, the scientist is killed by a hit and run driver and it's up to Imogene to somehow deliver that information. In a parallel story, a cop (Billy Campbell of ROCKETEER) confronts his crooked ex-partner (Michael Rooker), who has gone crazy and killed his own wife. They get in a skirmish and Rooker beats Campbell. Before he kicks him in the head he then tells him that he's going to go and kill everyone he cares about, as payback, which includes his college-aged daughter. And there's another story about a female doctor and her family, which heats up once the meteors start hitting the Earth.
The first half of this two-part mini-series is great. There's plenty of action, decent effects and interesting characters. However, at the end of the first episode, when they think they blew up the meteor, it's revealed that it had broken in half in space and they only destroyed the smaller half. The big piece is still on its way. So everything starts happening all over again. And the stories which began in the first half start to become ludicrous. Imogene goes from one bad situation to the next. She is arrested by corrupt Mexican police, almost raped by them, manages to escape and steal their car, gets taken into custody at the border then once she gets help she's in another car accident. Goofy. And once the good cop catches up with the insane one and rescues his daughter he doesn't shoot the guy but takes him into custody. Of course he's going to escape and take the daughter hostage again. And the story with the woman doctor is predictable once part of her hospital is hit by a meteor fragment. The ending is the worst, though. They manage to save the planet but Emogene is still all mopey because in 18 years there's a chance that another massive space rock will strike the Earth. Boo hoo.
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Rating: 4.0 out of 10.0 - 3 votes cast total
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