Thursday, July 9, 2015

Meltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)



Number Rolled: 59
Movie Name/Year: Meltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)
Genre: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Length: 94 minutes
Rating: R
Production Companies: Front Street Pictures, PorchLight Entertainment
Executive Producer: Harvey Kahn
Director: J.P. Howell
Writer: Rick Drew
Actors: Casper Van Dien, Vincent Gale, Stefanie von Pfetten, Venus Terzo, Amanda Crew, Ryan McDonell, Greg Anderson, Bill Dow, Philip Granger, Dee Jay Jackson, Floyd Faircrest

Tom is a cop and a good one at that. When an asteroid knocks Earth off its axis, though, he is faced with more looting and crime than he can manage. The only thing he can do is try and get his family to safety.

Selina’s Point of View:
The Sci-Fi Channel is listed as a distributor for this film, but it’s worth noting that The Asylum is NOT credited in Meltdown: Days of Destruction.

That being said, I only had some issues with this film.

The production value wasn’t bad at all for this kind of film. It’ll never be considered a blockbuster, but for a B-movie the graphics and sets weren’t too bad. The problem was the actual video. It broke in spots. For you people out there who are old like me, you’d recognize it as a VHS tape that’s been overplayed.

Aside from that, the script was a little lackluster and there was less real action than you’d expect in an apocalyptic film.

Story-wise, it was ok. It reminded me of a similar setting to what you see in the second book of The Maze Runner series. There were crazies that reminded me of the cranks, too. It’s a basic trope of this kind of story.

Casper Van Dien (Fire Twister, Sleeping Beauty, Mortal Kombat TV Series) is underrated. He’s definitely my favorite B-movie actor, and the whole reason this film wound up on the list to begin with. Truth is, none of the actors were terrible in Meltdown: Days of Destruction. Sure, the enemies reminded me of acting in 80s action flicks, but I’m a child of the 80s. I totally get it.

This is not a movie I would have watched without this blog in play, but I’m not upset I had to.

Cat’s Point of View:
You never know what to expect when watching one of these Sci-Fi B-movies that tend to run on the SYFY network. I don’t remember seeing this one before, but then I might have just changed the channel.

I just couldn’t seem to suspend disbelief with this one. Not even a little bit.

An asteroid chunk skipping off of the earth’s atmosphere as a result of a botched experiment shoves the earth out of orbit and closer to the sun. Okay, so far that wasn’t horrible – sketchy, maybe. Temperatures across the globe start rising and civilization devolves into chaos in less than a day. Really?

Add to that some teen angst, a love triangle, and ‘your ex con boyfriend isn’t good enough because reasons.’ This movie really tried to take itself seriously, and I just couldn’t.

No one on the ‘good guy team’ got sunburn, while the rest of the population seemed to be blistering. Everyone was wearing heavy long-sleeved clothing, and only showing a modicum of sweat. Even their hair stayed nice.

Cars are exploding but planes at the airport with more volatile fuel were going to be ok? By the end of the movie, I was both glad it was over and wondered what in the world I’d just watched.

I get that this was supposed to be an action thriller, but it both lacked good action or thrills for me. Not even Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers, Noobz, 500 MPH Storm) could save this one.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 23%

Netflix’s Prediction for Selina – 1.7/5
Selina’s Trust-the-Dice Score2/5

Netflix’s Prediction for Cat – 1.5/5
Cat’s Trust-the-Dice Score1/5

P.S. There are scenes during the credits.

P.P.S. When looking at Casper Van Dien’s IMDB page, The Random Review came across the information that he’s going to be in 16 movies/TV shows in 2015. One of those movies is called Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf. We just felt like sharing that.

Movie Trailer:

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