Polar Storm (2009)

So I guess I.. tolerated Asteroid-a-Geddon enough that I decided to come back for more from GREAT! Movies... I mean, truth be told when I took a cursory look through what they had available to watch, most of it is just turgid romantic / situational comedy stuff that  b o r e s  me to tears and I don't quite hate myself enough to willingly subject myself to that kind of torture just yet. Maybe next year. So I tried to pick out something that sort of loosely, broadbrushly vibes with the kind of FTW content that I've already covered so far and that's when Polar Storm found me. A 2009 straight to Sci-Fi channel 'disaster' movie about a comet disrupting Earth's magnetic field and creating violent storms that threaten Earth with destruction. These low budget disaster movies, generally speaking, are usually pretty entertaining for sometimes wildly different reasons, and if a movie about space objects causing havoc on Planet Earth isn't tailor made to feature on this blog then I don't know what is. 

The public is gripped with the drama as comet Copernicus makes it's passage across space in the closest proximity to the Earth yet, not least of which Professor James Mayfield (Jack Coleman), an astrophysicist studying the comet from Alaska, and his wife and teacher; Cynthia Mayfield (Holly Elissa Dignard) back home in Lindenville, Washington. As the comet makes it's pass a fragment of it breaks away and strikes the Earth no less than 100 miles from James and his colleague, with James only just surviving the impact by sheltering in an avalanche bunker. Returning home to news that nearly 250,000 people perished in the impact, James returns to Cynthia and his son Shane (Tyler Johnston) to obvious tension between Shane and his Step Mum but James seems more concerned with the President going on TV and telling everyone that everything is going to be ok. His concerns appear well founded though when, after the area suffers from a tremor preceded by an EM shockwave, and when after his own research appears to confirm that the sun has moved position in the sky... James opines - on national television - that there has been a shift in Earth axis tilt that could result in a catastrophic pole reversal. There is this hilarious sub-text at this point that, somehow even in say 2009, that international news coverage of incredible catastrophic events all over the world is somehow being suppressed and hidden from the public by the American government... like mate have you been on the Internet?... and that this is somehow all going to be undone by James... The President (Roger Cross) instructs James estranged Father, General Mayfield (Terry David Mulligan) to "bring him in." The aforementioned point notwithstanding, the Government must be doing a lousy job because James finds it pretty easy to access a whole plethora of information supporting his pole reversal theory but Cynthia interrupts his homework session to announce that Shane didn't come home last night and that she can't reach him by phone. The pair rush out to begin the search but before James can even make it to the car he's whisked away to "the air base" by the military police leaving Cynthia to go out on the search alone. Shane meanwhile, is wandering around with his friend Zoe (Emma Lahana) having just narrowly survived plummeting into a sinkhole tremor but luckily Cynthia catches up with them both and escorts them home just in time as suddenly a huge electro magnetic storm sweeps across the country, frying electrical devices and causing massive damage. Meanwhile James gets dragged in front of video call by his estranged father but is unable to convince the President and his advisor of the impending pole reversal, with the President labelling it sensationalist and suggesting James is more interested in self promotion. James is on his way back home in a military escort when he too is impacted by the storm. After contacting his colleagues in the Storm Hazards Research Lab, he learns the electromagnetic storms are only going to get worse... Reconvening with his family, James and the others make plans to evacuate from Lindenville, but James U-turns and tells Cynthia and Shane that he has to go back to the base in order to speak to the President. Shane reacts angrily and leaves his dad not on speaking terms as they evacuate to nearby Little Brook. As Cynthia and Shane try to leave town they are prevented by a military blockage and instead directed to return to Lindenville Parish church. They make it back to town but are caught up by a massive tremor and sinkhole that ravages the area and in the process Cynthia almost falls to her death as the ground beneath her gives way. James makes it back to the base and after receiving some data from his pals at Storm Hazards, briefs the President and explains that the Earth will lose it's magnetic field in less than 48 hours. He explains that there may be a way to reverse it by detonating a nuclear device of similar magnitude to the comet impact in the opposing hemisphere to effectively try and reverse the tilt shift the Earth has undergone. Despite initial reservations, the President approves the idea but the planes responsible for dropping the bombs are obliterated by erratic EM pulses in the sky meaning James and the General are forced to explore other options. Meanwhile, holed up in the Lindenville Parish Church and located pretty much in the absolute epicentre of the worst storms, Cynthia tries to implore the army to relocate the towns citizens but they are steadfast in their refusal to listen to her. She does however convince Zoe, Shanes friend from earlier and Zoe's Dad, Michael (Rob Morton) who, jumping in Michael's car drive away from the Church just before it get's hit with a storm frying everyone inside. James briefs the team again, this time explaining that his plan B is to detonate a device within the Mariana Trench; the deepest part of the Earth's crust, commandeering the help of the only surviving submarine currently in the water; an old Russian diesel submarine used for military training! A passing EM pulse causes issues for both parties, as Michael's pacemaker is effected by the wave, and similarly inside the military convoy James is a part of, the truck carrying the bomb destined for the trench is damaged, meaning James and his Dad have to fix it up before they can continue. Shane and Cynthia run into some trouble when, pulling over to wait as another EM pulse passes, some guy tries to carjack them, only to end up getting electrocuted to death in the process, but the shock also reduces Michael to his knees clutching his chest. Meanwhile James and General Mayfield make it to the port rendezvousing with Submarine Captain Yulenkov (Kurt Max Runte) and they just make it below surface before the pulse sweeps over them. As they make the descent the scale of the geological phenomenon becomes more apparent and the sub is struck by a tumbling rock that takes out of one of the engines and makes escape from the resulting nuclear shockwave near impossible... but after dropping the nuclear charges the crew decide to at least try anyway, reversing direction at full strength and hatching a plan to hitch a ride on an underwater volcano jet in an attempt to make it to the surface. Back on dry land, Shane devises a way to get the car started again with the battery now fried by the careless carjacker and using a bit of engineering knowhow and some help from a shockwave he kickstarts the car into action. James' plan has seemingly worked as in the following scene, the President cuts a speech about overcoming the disaster as James and General Mayfield return home to be greeted by a waiting Cynthia and Shane.

This was ok I guess... I mean, for a TV movie I felt like there was alot of effort put in actually and the production values were actually a bit higher than usual. Or maybe I've just gotten use to watching crap? I was genuinely pleasantly surprised at some of the attention to detail with there being streets full of abandoned cars and actual, genuine looking military equipment. You usually don't get that with these movies, they usually cut corners! And in terms of acting, things were decent here too. It just had a lot of the clichés and the trailer bait... or I guess advert bait in context to this movie... that brought things down a peg or two and I felt like there was a bit of a skimp on the whole disaster side of things. But otherwise, yeah this was OK.

I think I need to start with some of the more negative points to this one. There was a pretty good amount of suspension of disbelief needed here. And good fair few minor plot holes that had to be overlooked in order to embellish what was going on in the movie. I don't always have a problem with that, sometimes you need to take creative licence, but they were quite obvious here: like how does an Astrophysicist know how to arm a timer on a nuclear bomb, and how did Michael survive 2 or 3 EM pulses before a 3rd one fried his pacemaker, how did they not see a man standing on the side of the road in the middle of open road with a gun... There was a few others but they are the ones that stand out to me right now and the nagging doubt sort of crept into my mind a couple of times whilst I was watching along with a fair old few: "of course there is." kind of moments that are baked in to either dodge a bigger plot hole or up the drama. It is mostly fine but very heavy hallmarks of a made for TV B-Movie.

Compounding that, whilst the storyline was substantial enough, it was very formulaic of these kind of disaster movies: the whole planet on the edge of complete destruction is saved at the last minute by an ingenious plan. And yes, it happens alot. It's nothing fresh and the same formula is applied here. Even right down to the creator of the plan surviving right at the last minute against seemingly impossible odds. It's very cliché and as a result not very fresh and again leaves you with a kind of "of course there is" kind of feeling. I'd have liked to have seen something different, maybe a different take or approach but no the movie sticks very closely and faithfully to the tried and tested original tropes of the genre.

And at times, the special effects and some of the disaster action moments were a little bit on the nose. The scenes of people being electrocuted, unfortunately, bordered on genuinely hilarious rather than harrowing and unsettling. And it kind of killed any suspension or foreboding that the movie might have been able to build. Understandably this is to make sure the movie is suitable for broadcast before watershed and not massively restrict it's audience. So understandable. But did they have to make the scenes of people being fried by electricity so dramatic and hilarious? It felt like the tone was a bit out there really...

Other than that, I thought the acting was mostly ok. Jack Coleman as James Mayfield erred on the vanilla side just a little bit a times and he lacked a bit of character at times, but he was ok. Similarly Tyler Johnston as Shane was pigeonholed as a moody but attractive ladish kind of teenager but I felt like he at least had some acting experience at this stage and wasn't totally green and cast just for his good looks. He was alright. I guess Holly Elissa Dignard as Cynthia was kind of also a focus but she didn't really get to have much of a character beyond being the 'female supporting role with superior knowledge that gets ignored' kind of role. Pretty much everybody else was just supporting and I feel was pretty adequate at what they were doing. The only real downers were that none of the characters really had any personality beyond their defined roles and some of the supporting roles were heavily stereotypical; the authoritative naïve President, the War Veteran General, the "nasty" Carjacker. They all purely existed to serve as character tropes and nothing much really beyond that.

And the cinematography for the most part was decent. The movie had this weird habit of zooming right in and framing entire shots with just the face of the subject. Well proportioned shots, granted, but I couldn't quite figure out why, and all it did when used on Jack Coleman / James was serve to exaggerate his terrible gurning... Other than that though, they made use of some clever and interesting angles, and some corner cutting but not necessarily scene ruining methods to get around having to fork out loads on practical and special effects just to get a shot. These B-Movies can live or die on how they are shot to keep the budget down but I feel like they did a decent job here and it felt like a professionally shot movie. Not just some nonsense slapped together at the last minute.

On the subject of special effects there was a fair few moments where this movie exposed it's budget, but I thought the effects were pretty decent, especially for a post 2000's movie. The submarine looked like a real submarine. The shots where the tremors and sinkholes were striking were mostly OK, you could kind of tell the cars were CGI at certain points, but mostly looked convincing enough. And the electrics sparks and forking e.t.c were maybe a little bit exaggerated but looked real enough that it didn't get corny. I've certainly seen alot worse in alot more modern movies.

So yeah, this was just... fine. A perfectly adequate TV movie that I doubt would leave any real lasting impression on anybody that watched it, but was entertaining enough that it kills a good hour and half without having to tax your brain or force you into anything uncomfortable. It unfortunately sticks very faithfully to the tried and tested formulas of disaster movies and is heavily garnished with a good handful of clichés but there is a bit of a lack of action and a bit of a lack of any other substance otherwise. But to be fair I think if it had gone all in in any other direction and either gone full on ridiculous or full on scientific it would failed either way so they played it safe with this one. And yeah, it's fine. It served it's intended purpose I guess. 2 out of 5.