Despite scientist Nathan's warnings, his boss continues an experiment meant as publicity for his satellite firm: exploding an asteroid. Instead it splits, and the major piece, the size of Ic... Read allDespite scientist Nathan's warnings, his boss continues an experiment meant as publicity for his satellite firm: exploding an asteroid. Instead it splits, and the major piece, the size of Iceland, changes course to earth. It is deflected but so close that it shift our course clos... Read allDespite scientist Nathan's warnings, his boss continues an experiment meant as publicity for his satellite firm: exploding an asteroid. Instead it splits, and the major piece, the size of Iceland, changes course to earth. It is deflected but so close that it shift our course closer to the sun, causing rapid extreme heating, hopefully only mid-term. Nathan warns his si... Read all
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What it all boils down to is a kind of road/post-apocalypse movie, as Van Dien and his colleagues/friends and family are forced to try to get to a place of safety while contending with intense temperatures. Strangely, despite the supposed heatwave, most of the characters continue to wear long shirts and/or jackets - at least the cult '60s flick NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT made the effort of making the protagonists look all sweaty and dishevelled!
Given the poverty-row budget, most of the threat comes from various looters and bad guys, and it's all done in a gung ho fashion and fairly well paced. But the writing is predictable and the characters non-existent, with none of the cast making much of an impact. About the only scene in the film I enjoyed was the bit with the exploding cars, which was novel; the rest is merely humdrum.
In Meltdown he's a policeman who just happens to be dating TV reporter Stefanie Von Pfeten and her brother is a scientist who's trying to deal with a speeding comment headed for Earth. But in the runaway comet business, even a near miss causes some real problems as the Earth's orbit goes out of kilter.
From the survival of the Earth we go to the survival of Van Dien and his immediate family. His daughter's gangbanger boyfriend, Ryan McDonell actually proves to be of some use especially when he suspects a guy he knows as a crooked cop might mean the Van Dien group a lot of harm.
My only question here is, why didn't they have Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and the rest of that crew to deal with the nasty comet?
Pass this one up folks.
It was made to be bad and to lose money (for tax loss purposes) and on that level I applaud it. It's certainly a terrible movie and I have to hand it to the producers -- they accomplished everything they set out to make; a terrible money-losing movie. Bravo! Well done!
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The British Columbia Production Services Tax Credit (PSTC) encourages film, television and animation production in BC and is available to either international or Canadian productions produced in British Columbia.
There are four components:
The basic PSTC tax credit is 33% of qualified BC labour expenditures incurred after February 28, 2010.
The REGIONAL tax credit is 6% of qualified BC labour expenditures of the corporation pro-rated by the number of days of principal photography in BC outside of the designated Vancouver area to the total days of principal photography in BC.
The new DISTANT Location tax credit is 6% and is added to the regional tax credit for principal photography done outside of the Lower Mainland Region, north of Whistler and east of Hope, excluding the Capital Regional District.
DIGITAL ANIMATION or VISUAL EFFECTS tax credit is 17.5% of BC labour expenditures directly attributable to digital animation or visual effects activities.
Did you know
- TriviaNot to be confused with an old John Carpenter project called "Meltdown", a 1977-1978 adaptation of the "Prometheus Cris" novel, later set to star Dolph Lundgren and to be directed by John Dahl in 1994. But even though Casper Van Dien had also been attached to it in 1997-1998, that project had nothing to do with "Meltdown: Days of Destruction". Writer/director of Rick Drew developed the story from scratch and claims he had never heard of the Carpenter script and received sole credit from the WGA.
- GoofsThe group takes a 'refrigerated truck' in order to have cool air for the engine and gas tank, but when they are driving away it is obvious that the drivers compartment is completely open to the rest of the interior - this would be a problem during normal use as it would freeze the driver.
- ConnectionsReferences Clueless (1995)
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $2,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1