Solar Attack

Solar Strike aka Solar Attack is a Disaster movie which was made straight for TV, if I am not mistaken. And you immediately can tell that the budget was not all too big to make this film. This clearly reveals when it comes to visuals and dialogues, which can be very cheesy at times. I liked Mark Dacascos in this role though and even if the film is pretty much generic, it was not as bad as some other ratings imply. If you don't take things too serious you might even enjoy this one. Bill Lake in his role as the Russian captain was even fun to watch. Louis Gossett Jr. (some of you might remember him in his role as Jerry from the gorgeous Enemy Mine) as the president of the United States? Well, in movies everything is possible. You might forget this movie soon after you have seen it, but that doesn't mean it is painful to watch or something. If you just want to kill some time by watching a disaster movie, there are way better ones. But also way worse ones.

If I could have given this a half star I would have. We watch SyFy movies for laughs. We enjoy the bad acting, the awful special effects, the ridiculous-ness of it all. While this definitely had the bad acting (aside from Louis Gossett, Jr. he was fine for the couple of minutes he was in it...but why, Louis, why?) it had none of the fun. There was a lot of conversation, a lot of 'science', but no gratuitous violence that we've come to love from the SyFy movies, none of the laughs, just a bunch of serious talking about the why's of it all. I don't care, I just want to watch someones arm come off or some silly line I can quote afterwards. Skip it. Watch Megasnake or Frankenfish for some good quality cheese. This is boring monotony. The only fun we had was when they mentioned how big something was and we compared whatever it was to the size of Joanne Kelly's distractingly large upper lip. We fast forwarded the last 20 minutes to see the predictable ending and regretted wasting a Friday night on this one.

I saw this last night and kept watching as there was nothing else on that was better. The premise of the movie was cool. Big solar storm ignites the atmosphere and has the potential of instantly wiping out life on Earth. However, the dialogue in the movie was horrible. The script was lacking emotion and intensity. The dialogue could have been so much better. The acting was alright given the bad dialogue. Louis Gosset, Jr. plays the president but has a small role in the movie overall. The score was horrible. The movie needed more intense music and more emotive dialogue. This movie lacked in intensity and would have benefited greatly from it. Unfortunately, the movie was pretty much on par with most small budget films made in Canada.

I read another review saying this was only for people who were idiots. However, the movie was quite interesting and not too bad for a TV movie. It reminded me of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, only a modern version.

I was glad to see no horrible camera work where everything is jerking around and very amateurish looking. I would definitely watch this again.

The acting was quite satisfactory and I know that TV movies do not have the same budget as movies released to the theaters, this was definitely captivating.

The premise IS possible (as possible as the Van Allen radiation belt catching fire in Voyage). The effects were just fine. I found this movie to be entertaining and that's really what I watch a movie for.

Solar Attack is about a large coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun that threatens to ignite the atmosphere and kill everyone. The president must try and make the right decision and he only has one chance. The scientists and advisors are split, but the president errs on the side of caution and authorizes some dangerous operations. While this film deals with a lesser known extinction level event, the science is still dubious as presented. For the most part, the performances aren't convincing and seems rushed. I think this has more to do with the directing rather than the acting. Dialog is common with little snap. I doubt that even big name actors could have pulled this out of the C+ range. Special effects were nonspecific, general, and unrealistic.