Countdown: The Sky's on Fire (1999)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Dr. Evan (John Corbett), a reputed ecological scientist, was once let go from a government position, for his rather extreme views on ozone depletion. Now, he works out of his own LA area laboratory. His sister Jennifer (Josie Bissett), who is married to a pilot, Racer (Ben Browder), still lives and works near him. One day, Racer is sent to investigate the downing of a small plane in the desert. After finding the aircraft and the passengers/crew deceased, Racer, too, is struck with a mysterious ailment and calls for help. Once paramedics arrives, they escort him straight to the nearest hospital. Doctors are baffled. Meanwhile, a dozen humpback whales are found dead on a nearby beach. At the scene, a brash reporter (Bradley Whitford) asks a lovely biologist, Elizabeth, what has gone wrong. She speculates a virus, until she can further review the situation. However, its she soon discovers the cause was not viral. The whales starved to death. Why? Dr. Evan, now involved, states that according to his data, the ozone layer over a part of the Pacific is lethally thin, warming the water and killing the whale's food source, plankton. Not only that, Los Angeles is also about to "heat up" and cause death and destruction, as the hole is headed that way. Naturally, the government scientist in charge calls it nonsense and tells the mayor that there is no reason to evacuate. But, with birds crashing into windows, insects taking over houses, and fishermen dying on their boats, what can be done? Evan just might have the answer and get a chance to be a true hero. Hurrah! This is a small scale science fiction film from the late nineties that is still entertaining and thought stirring. Corbett makes a great unconventional scientific know-it-all while Bissett is so beautiful and talented that you wonder why she didn't become more of a star. Whitfield and the rest of the cast support them nicely. Of course, there's nothing spectacular about the sets, costumes, camera work, script or direction but they all work together to create a polished, intriguing little film. Do you love science fiction or disaster films? If you've run out of viewing options, get this one.

I have got to read his book. This movie leaves me with a lot of questions about what we are doing to ourselves. We are responsible for what we do and need to know much more about how we are depleting natural resources. It is imperative we clean up the world for future generations.I have a little more understanding of what the ozone does for us thanks to this movie. We take to much for granted today. Dumping trash in our water, adding chemicals to water and food. How many of the illnesses that humans suffer are direct results of adding chemicals to milk, dehydrated foods etc; so that they are edible past the date of natural consumption. Are we creating new illnesses, new problems by our actions. "For every action, there is a reaction". We need to remind ourselves with movies like this that we reap our own consequences.

OK, so this will never win an Oscar but it wouldn't win a Razzie either! This is the televisual equivalent of an airport trash novel. A little love, a little danger, a little science mixed together to make a quick, frothy eco-drama.The story concerns the damage that Mankind has inflicted on Mother Nature and the fact that even the most benevolent of entities will get hacked off from time to time.Basically, it is a morality tale that we reap what we sow. As we blindly pour CFC's and the like into the atmosphere and the earth, eventually something will happen.In this case the "happenings" stretch from the ridiculous to the sublime. The beached whales, psychotic birds and my personal favourite the full grown human held hostage by maggots and spiders (OK when it comes to the second creepy crawly I can see why she did what she did urghh).The characters never really have the opportunity to develop more than two dimensions, but even then the actors carry it well and I have to say to their credit this movie could have been "hammed up" a heck of a lot more. Even the "it might just work.....it has to" solution to the situation was handled well and didn't feel to easy a plot feature.As for the main stars, John Corbett (Dr. Evan Thorne) managed to convey the eco-scientist without either hysterical apocalyptic panic or cold detached "I told you so". He made the character reasonably believable (for all it's dimensional limitations as previously noted).Bradley Whitford (John Morgan), favourite of mine, added some credibility to the film just by being in it. His character again was played middle of the line. Not so closed minded as to be Anti-science/Anti-tree hugger but not so open minded as to be looking for his next quote from Revelations! The love interest/action parts were left to the two "youngsters" Josie Bissett (Jennifer Thorne) and Ben Browder (Racer, never knew if this was his whole name, first name, surname or nick name! But it was pretty annoying as a name anyway). Here we have the double love interest (Jenny is Racer's Fiancé and Dr. Thorne's sister), the obligatory hero (Racer is a Airforce Jet Pilot) and the human element (Both are affected by the situation at one time or another). They were credible performances and again not over the top or soppy! So all in all, it is not a film I would give up shopping or visiting friends to watch. But saying that if I saw it on Channel 5 (UK) or TNT (US) one quiet afternoon I would happily while away and hour and a half with a good cuppa and a digestive.

Just saw this movie which ABC showed last night. I liked this better than I liked another recent TV-movie about the earth caving in beneath New Orleans. Both are dopey but this one was a lot of fun. Preposterous? Sure but that is the kick in all of these movies. Everything keeps moving and we see the usual scenes of bureaucratic incompetence, animal panic, people panic and various and sundry calamities. All in all a good entry in the TV-movie disaster genre.