Doomsday Meteor

This film was actually hilarious with how much it doesn't try to suspend your disbelief.

Besides the fact they were using obviously using motorcycle helmets rather than astronaut helmets (which I'm sure are cheap enough to get on amazon or something), when they were on the asteroid, there was OBVIOUS VEGETATION IN THE BACKGROUND! They didn't even try to hide it. It was right in your face. You could even see power poles in the distance. There were tire tracks on the ground (not from the rover). You could even see the shadow from the camera guy in one of the shots. At least try to make me imagine you're in space and not on earth.

Of course I opted to sit down and watch this 2023 natural disaster movie titled "Doomsday Meteor", as I happened to stumble upon it by blind luck here in 2024. I had never heard about the movie, but I do like natural disaster movies, though the vast majority of them are questionable at best. But I harbored no expectation to the movie, so writers Lauren Pritchard and Joe Roche and director Noah Luke had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

And when the movie started and The Asylum logo popped up, I must admit that some of the air already seeped from the balloon. The Asylum aren't exactly known for their stellar natural disaster movies, and they do have a couple of not so great ones out there. But I still opted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt, as The Asylum do spit out a good movie every now and again.

The storyline in the movie, written by Lauren Pritchard and Joe Roche, was very generic, even for a natural disaster movie. So you're not in for anything out of the ordinary here. If you've seen any movie with a meteor threatening the extinction of life on Earth by colliding with Earth, then you've already seen "Doomsday Meteor", for better or worse.

And you just got to love the ridiculous plans that people concoct in order to get a massive meteor to deviate from its flight path and thus preventing it from impacting with Earth and cause a global disaster. You just sort of get weary and tired of these goofball plans with lasers, missiles, and what not.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough. There were only a couple of familiar faces on the cast list, that being Patrick Labyorteaux, Anthony Jensen, Caroline Williams and Joseph Michael Harris.

I will say that the special effects and CGI in "Doomsday Meteor" are actually good, taking into consideration that this is a movie from The Asylum. It is nice to see that they keep shoveling money into their effects department, because proper effects are a make-or-break deal in movies such as what The Asylum often spew out.

If you enjoy natural disaster movies, then you might actually get a proper kick out of sitting through 86 minutes of watching "Doomsday Meteor". If not, then you're in for a rather bland natural disaster movie experience that is very much like so many other movies before it.

My rating of "Doomsday Meteor" lands on a four out of ten stars.

At first I thought, Hey! Asylum have made a tiny bit better cgi but then it went to hell. And when they sent out an astronaut in a regular motorcycle helmet I gave up. Asylum movies works when they do spoofs like Sharknado. But this? Its just sad. The actors are laughable and its sad to see Caroline Williams of Texas chainsaw 2 fame look like she just want to escape. Alternatively she looks like she dont know what shes doing.

Its ridiculously serious and not tongue in cheek.

Im so happy I didnt pay to watch this piece of garbage. It doesnt need to exist! Why? If you cant make something good why even bother?

Avoid like the plague.

This movie is so cheap they didn't even bother getting an actual general's uniform. The just pinned random badges to a blue suit. They're traveling in a space shuttle, but it looks like a makeshift room in a warehouse, with regular gravity. The "special effects" were done with the new Windows Vista operating system.

The Asylum is known for schlocky movies, but this one is even more cheaper looking than usual. Do these actually make ANY money? Other than confusing people when they're looking for the original movie.

Bruce Willis may need to sue for defamation. This is just another embarrassment.

A huge meteor is about to crash into the earth killing everyone. Our government springs into action and assigns a grand total of six people to work on the problem.

The team gets down to work by watching old movies and decides Deep Impact looks like fun. They find an old space shuttle from the retired program (probably the one in the Smithsonian), fill the tank, light the fuse, and off they go. No spoilers but if you're alive to read this you can figure out they succeeded.

The acting is bad. Really bad. Like bad for Asylum bad. If you don't know what that's like imagine your personal worst-actor-ever nominee and remove that individual's ability to remember lines and move their facial muscles.

The CGI is actually better than usual for Asylum, but that isn't saying much. It's the practical effects that let them down. There is gravity in space. The surface of the asteroid has plants. The costumes are from a popup Halloween store.

The drama is gripping. The world is about to end and our lead hero asks his team if they want to bail on the rescue mission "because most of you probably have families". None of our heroes take him up on his offer. A couple minutes later he gives the exact same speech and asks again. In a surprising turn of events none of our heroes take him up on his offer. That's good writing.

Asylum is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Over the past twenty five years the only thing the brain trust in the Asylum has learned is that people have different sexual preferences. We're informed our male hero is gay as is our female pilot. It has nothing to do with anything but there you go.

One half a star compared to a professionally produced. For an Asylum film that's average. Five stars.