Absolute Zero

Year of Release: 2006
Genre: Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 3.2 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

So there I was, minding my own business, when I was suddenly struck by a terrible case of the shakes. I broke out into a cold sweat, my mouth was bone dry, and I was starting to see double. I had gone into soft science withdrawal. It’s a terrible thing when it happens, and you need to have a sci-fi b-movie ready for when these symptoms strike. Thankfully, I’d saved Absolute Zero for just such an emergency. The movie manages a number of feats: it’s a b-grade disaster movie that wasn’t made by either the Asylum or the Syfy Channel, it’s mind-numbingly painful to watch, and the science is so soft that it would make a marshmallow roasting over Satan’s arse seem like titanium. Prepare to witness the movie that dares to ask the question: how soft is your science?

How the hell’d I get here?

Meet Dr David Kotzman, a brilliant man working for Inter Sci. Dr Dave specialises in looking at the effects that temperatures plummeting to absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius, or -460 degrees Fahrenheit for my American readers) would have on life on Earth. They’d be fairly devastating, to put in mildly. But Dr Dave has a theory, you see: he’s convinced that the last ice age didn’t occur over a period of hundreds or thousands of years as modern science would have us believe. No, he believes that the ice ages are brought on when parts of the world suddenly plummet to absolute zero for a few seconds, freezing absolutely everything in sight. For all we know this theory could have been brought on by a night at an opium den, because the movie really isn’t going to explain how we got there. Then again, the theory could have been inspired by the constant thumping porno beats that play when he’s doing his research. Suffice to say Dr Dave is going to get an opportunity to test out his theory soon enough.

Tough crowd.

You see, there’s been some very strange weather going on across the globe lately: thunder storms over Antarctica (which are apparently very normal), ice bergs floating through the harbours of Florida, tropical weather in New York, and the list just goes on. How are we ever going to find out what’s going on before it’s too late? With cave paintings, that’s how! Dr Dave meets up with an Inter Sci research team already out in Antarctica (presumably building the emergency opium den) and, with a little help from global warming, manage to find a cave full of fully frozen people. Using a tiny microscope and a few spare grad students that just happened to be lying around, Dr Dave concludes that the world’s magnetic poles are about to shift themselves. This will have devastating consequences across the globe, as everything along the equator suddenly finds itself fighting off the onset of absolute zero (dun dun dun!).

It’s a bit nippy out! Don’t forget to put on your thermals!

Can we stop all these terrible things from happening? With this much soft science? You must be joking! Unable to save the world from succumbing to this frozen nightmare, Dr Dave has to at least try and save his grad students and his ex-girlfriend who he’s never forgotten and conveniently met up with just before the disaster struck. Luckily she’s a specialist in ancient cave drawings, and using the ones from Antarctica she arrives at the same conclusion as Dr Dave: the world is about to be thrown (rather haphazardly) into the next ice age. It’s a race against time as temperatures continue to plummet, funnels of freezing air strike at random, 10-year-old girls speak monotonously into walkie talkies, and lifeguards take over half an hour to evacuate a paddling pool. The world will never be the same again after it succumbs to… ABSOLUTE ZERO (dun dun dun!)

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Global warming means grad students can now spend a semester out in Antarctica.
• Even the president doesn’t have the authority to pull university students out of Antarctica.
• You can just book commercial flights to Antarctica these days.
• When light freezes, it’s time to get the winter jerseys out.
• Even with a doctorate degree in the field, it’s very easy to confuse archaeology for anthropology.
• Antarctica once held a small, but thriving, colony of ancient Egyptians.
• We can date 10 000-year-old cave paintings to the exact day they were drawn.
• Only in America can big corporations think that they can stop the weather from happening.
• The Earth’s axis of rotation has absolutely nothing to do with the seasons.
• There’s nothing quite as ineffective as an optional evacuation.
• Strip clubs provide excellent landmarks in times of crisis.
• Absolute zero is really dangerous, but people can still survive quite comfortably at -158 degrees Celsius.
• Always remember to keep your emergency power supply dangerously far away from the bunker that’ll save your life.

ABSOLUTE ZERO TRAILER

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2012: Ice Age

Year of Release: 2010
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 2.3 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

At this stage in the game I’m well acquainted with movies made by The Asylum. Although they usually tend to throw out really z-grade versions of far superior movies this wasn’t a real mockbuster, although if I’d be lying if I said it was entirely original either. Instead I’ll go with ‘Inspired by events from The Day After Tomorrow‘. The poor acting and general sub par CGI aside the main issue I take with this movie is that the title is misleading. There isn’t an ice age! At best there’s a lot of implausible snow, but certainly no ice age. That said, if the movie was good and full of enjoyment it wouldn’t be here for End of the World Month 🙂

She overgathered her thought.

So the world’s end begins in Greenland where an enormous volcanic range is about to blow. Our entire base camp has been evacuated except for one fool who’s been left behind to relay information to his boss Bill. Bill is currently stuck in traffic dropping his daughter off at the airport so he’s in no immediate danger but Fool in Greenland has to make a very daring attempted escape for his life. Sadly his helicopter is blown out the sky by some flying ice / volcanic ash, but he managed to accomplish his goal of telling Bill that an entire ice shelf has detached from Greenland. Bill, being a family oriented man, ignores what he’s being told and tells Fool in Greenland that he’ll check the data when he gets back to the office in an hour. While he was occupied on the satellite phone his daughter, Julie, got tired of waiting and hopped out the car to catch her flight to New York.

Mr. Bill "I'll crash anything I drive" Hart.

Keeping his promise to check the data when he got back to the office, Bill realises that the world (i.e. America) is up to its knees in crap. The ice shelf / glacier / ice berg (no one can decide what it is) that blew off Greenland is hurtling itself towards the States at 200 mph and threatening the entire eastern coast. Bill decides to try and get his family, made up of his possibly ex-wife Teri and son Nelson, to safety. His son is one of those people who has an ‘I’m surprised / shocked / saddened’ acting range and we’re never quite sure how he’s feeling at any given time. Not to crush any dreams but Nick Afanasiev, who plays Nelson, really has no future in acting and I hope he realises that soon and pursues a more realistic career path. Teri and Nelson decide not to run for safety and instead opt to go with Bill to New York to save Julie and her hanger on Logan.

Disaster movies: 2, Lady Liberty: 0

This, of course, will not be a simple search and rescue mission. Apart from the main threat of the glacier / shelf / berg that’s hurtling towards Manhattan the ice also seems to have special powers over the world’s climate. These include: tornadoes, blizzards, hurricane-strength winds and the ability to completely block out the sun. Then there’s the human factor that needs to be taken into account, although there’s a relatively low-level of looting and general chaos in this movie. All that really happens is Bill’s held at gunpoint for his truck but it sinks into a frozen river 2 minutes later, so it really was all for the best in the end. Throughout their journey to New York friendships will be forged, family ties will be tested and complete strangers will be killed by giant chunks of flying ice. Truly, a testament to the power of the nuclear family.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Summit meetings are far more important than out running enormous glaciers.
• You know shit’s going down when no one at the White House answers their phone.
• Men are very turned on by the possibility of having sex on a dirty New York pavement.
• Back in the day science classes were there to teach you how to blow cars up.
• A good general defence policy includes nuking things now and dealing with the fallout later.
• It’s entirely possible to safely fly a light aircraft through a few tornadoes and a blizzard.
• Norway lies half way between Greenland and New Jersey.
• America, being infinitely awesome as it is, is fully entitled to declare war on a glacier if it feels like it.

2012: ICE AGE TRAILER

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