CAT. 8

Yeah, the "science" is laughable at best. I am in no way a scientist but I was laughing out loud at their "science" by 5 minutes in. By half an hour in, I was just rolling my eyes. This movie is pathetically badly written, the entire storyline is ridiculous. The characters are either completely underwhelming and forgettable, ridiculously perfect, or just plain a$$holes. The evil White House science guy (I have no idea what his position was, I think his name was Brian?) is too busy carrying out personal vendettas to care that the world is literally coming to an end. The whole thing is just one big hot mess that someone tossed into a dumpster fire.

Even for someone who loves bad disaster movies (10.5 Apocalypse is one of my all time favorite movies) this is a terrible a movie. Don't waste your time!

I agree completely with Ed Blackadder's review. Why is it so very difficult for the writers of scripts that pretend to be "science" fiction to ask even a serious amateur science enthusiast to review their scripts (I'd do it for free) to catch their innumerable errors and misrepresentations of natural phenomenon? Did the writers of this bad joke sleep through their grade school and high school science classes? Apparently. And they must also believe that everyone else did, too.

If you are a SCIENCE fiction fan, you'll want to skip this one unless you want to watch for a few laughs. However, that probably won't hold you through the entire show. I stopped watching to write this after the hilariously wrong satellite sequence about 20 minutes in. Gawd...

Seeing is believing: hilarious version of Thunderbirds with a team of wooden actors led by a defunct Modine (b. 1959, here with dyed hair) taking the place of the puppets (alas, without Penelope). In this cardboard effort even the interiors and set-designs were lost for words, as were the prozac-fuelled out-of-work white actors pissed as hell that all the decent movies are packed with African Americans professionals and this was their last shot, because they had promised to take their kids to Legoland. Rarely was so little owed to so few for so much, as Winston might have said between cigars and whiskey. But let's dispense with the words, since the Americans' language is one of bullets: Shoot 'em up, Scotty! Thank heavens we can always rely on the USA to save the entire frigging planet, while joining up all of humanity in a chorus of unity, right? This movie is so inept it really deserves 10 stars.

The script isn't that terrible, although I suspect the premise of the film carries it somewhat. It was a shame that it has been so poorly produced.

Every piece of the story is labored and is a perfect example of how modern films are scared to leave anything to the imagination. An example is the scene in what presumably is the White Situation Room or PEOC. The President has just shouted orders at people while repeatedly reminding the viewer that he is the President. He gets a message saying the Nasa Administrator is on the phone, and answers the phone as "President {such and such}". I get it, he is the President.

Tedious.

As I sat down here in 2023 to watch the 2013 disaster movie "CAT. 8", I had actually never heard about the movie, and thus obviously never seen it either. And with it being a disaster movie, of course I was interested in watching it, though I harbored little expectations to the movie, as the majority of disaster movies turn out to be exactly that; disasters.

The storyline in "CAT. 8"m as written by Donald Martin, was actually entertaining enough for what it was. Sure, it was a pretty straight forward, and thus also generic, disaster movie. I mean, you know the outcome of the movie from the moment you start the movie. But the ride from start to end was actually enjoyable for what it turned out to be. Don't expect writer Donald Martin to deliver anything that revolutionize the disaster movie genre, because that was far from the case here.

The acting performances in "CAT. 8" were okay. I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list, aside from leading actor Matthew Modine. But I will say that the cast generally put on adequate performances for a movie such as this.

Directors Kevin Fair and Sophie Boyer brought a fair enough movie to the screen, as it is simply a lean-back-in-the-seat-munch-on-the-snacks-and-enjoy-the-ride type of movie. You know what you get here, but the movie proved entertaining nonetheless.

The ending of the movie was predictable, oh so very, very predictable. And that is something I loathe about disaster movies; how a small group of people always manage to pull through insurmountable odds and come out on the other side and save our world when everything seems doomed.

Watchable for what it was "CAT. 8" lands on a five out of ten stars rating from me.