SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Leofwine_draca I caught this on TV under the title Cat. 8: Armageddon. It's a SyFy Channel disaster movie made in a two-part miniseries format rather than the usual slot. Otherwise, all of the plot elements are the same as you'd see in a usual movie. This one was filmed in Canada like many others (blame the tax breaks) and surprisingly doesn't feel slow despite the three-hour running time.The story is about a failed scientific experiment affecting the Sun and causing solar flares to strike Earth. Attempts to fix the problem only serve to make things worse when the planet stops spinning on its axis. Of course, the only person with the power to save the world is a renegade scientist, played by screen veteran Matthew Modine.Half of the running time follows Modine and his friends and family attempting to evade the ruthless authorities who plan to stop him for no good reason. The other half involves the President attempting to keep a control on things. There's also a human villain, the Secretary of Defense, working for his own ends and only making things worse. The usual gamut of cheap acting and lousy CGI effects plays out, but this is notably more likable than many SyFy efforts, feeling like a throwback to earlier disaster movies such as DEEP IMPACT more than anything else.

smb12321 I gave a "3" instead of a "1" because of unintentional humor. It was so bad it was good. Start with the premise that a new weapon is tested for the first time in the presence of the President. Suddenly, "something goes wrong", the machine shoots the sun and creates a huge flare. Then satellites crash ONLY on large cities - London, Chicago, Boston, etcActing and plot are the real disasters. The politicians were as genuine as Daffy Duck/ The male hero is an older disgraced scientists whose divorced wife i kept confusing with the daughter. Said daughter's cop boyfriend looked like a model with zero acting experience. A young female scientist whines as she battles the evil Sec of Defense. The special effects remind one of the first Star Trek episodes in their amateurishness. Volcanoes erupt, the ground splits lakes boil, earthquakes strike yet cell phones, internet and power continue unimpeded. LOL As the new Madam Prez dashes the dastardly nuclear plans of the Sec of Defense with seconds to go the scientists (older guy and young heroine) fall in LUV in the mismatch of the millennium. Boyfriend announces he's marrying daughter & divorced wife's new hubby proves he's a hero too. Invite some friends and keep track of the errors for a fun night. (This thing is - believe it or not - in two parts.)

TheLittleSongbird Out of the four mini-series personally viewed in the past two weeks airing on the SyFy channel, CAT.8 is better than Ring of Fire(though at least that had Terry O'Quinn) and especially the irredeemably terrible Meteor with Christopher Lloyd. But of the four the best was Eve of Destruction, although that was a long way from great that looked reasonably good and at least four of the actors were convincing. CAT.8 also has some better-than-average acting, Matthew Modine is a commendable lead, and the production values(apart from some hokey effects) are reasonable, basic though with some signs of atmospheric. On the whole however CAT.8 doesn't work. What really lets things down is the story and the science. To say that the science is questionable is an understatement in itself, if anything it is a disaster, so bad that experts would feel tempted to bail out halfway through the first half. It honestly sounded like the writers were making things up with no research and it was very difficult to believe any of it. As a result the story was implausible and had little if any credibility. Unfortunately also for the story it didn't feel enough to sustain the three hours, so it felt like a thin structure interwoven with a lot of padding, ham-fisted melodrama/exposition, underdeveloped sub-plotting and an overlong length. If you think the first half takes too long to get going and is implausible, wait until you see the second half, like with the Meteor, Ring of Fire and even Eve of Destruction it gets increasingly dull and illogical. The script is underwritten, cheesy and very awkward, another one of those instances where it came through clearly that the writers hadn't properly checked to see whether what they'd written and given the actors made sense. The music is turgid and unmemorable, the pacing is pedestrian and stretches the story out too much, the characters are nowhere near developed enough which is inexcusable for a mini-series of this length and generally CAT.8 feels under-directed and characterless. On the whole, there is worse out there but this was rather poor stuff, the best assets are the production values and the acting but the story, script, pacing and especially the science bog things down considerably. 3/10 Bethany Cox

wbblair3 I agree completely with Ed Blackadder's review. Why is it so very difficult for the writers of scripts that pretend to be "science" fiction to ask even a serious amateur science enthusiast to review their scripts (I'd do it for free) to catch their innumerable errors and misrepresentations of natural phenomenon? Did the writers of this bad joke sleep through their grade school and high school science classes? Apparently. And they must also believe that everyone else did, too.If you are a SCIENCE fiction fan, you'll want to skip this one unless you want to watch for a few laughs. However, that probably won't hold you through the entire show. I stopped watching to write this after the hilariously wrong satellite sequence about 20 minutes in. Gawd...