Meteor

"Meteor," the two-part miniseries, is long, predictable and ultimately boring. The only reason I bear the pain of the 3 hour or so ordeal is probably a curiosity to see how bad it can get.

The giant asteroid Kassandra has been knocked out of its orbit and is heading toward Earth.
With showers of debris meteorites already knocking out hospitals and airplanes, Kassandra is somewhere between 24 and 48 hours from direct collision with Earth, which will be what scientists succinctly term "an extinction event."

What puzzles me is that the geniuses of the world cannot come up with a better plan than to use brute force to take on the asteroid head on. Then the resulting debris will still be extinction resulting. The fact that a movie junkie like me took about a second to come up with a better alternative proves the lameness and childishness of the plot. Come on, for a world ending event, the task force is ridiculously small and amateurish. How is there only one person who can come up with the coordinates of the trajectory of the asteroid (And I don't see many others trying.) ? The mad genius, played by Christopher Llyod, didn’t even make it a half hour past the opening before being randomly killed by a hit and run. Climax or anti-climax, you decide.

The side stories can be quite a nice complement to create a panicky and urgent mood to the film but at last, they failed miserably. What is with this lunatic who is obsessed with getting his revenge yet is always late to pull the trigger or kill the main cast when he has his chances? Other sub-casts are easily ridden off without any hesitation. And by this time, when the perp. Is down, why wouldn’t you shoot him in the head and make sure he is permanently dead? Too many clichés and loopholes just kept the disappointments coming.

The director needs to learn that to create an atmosphere for a global catastrophe, you cannot be focused on US and Mexico. If you want to throw in side-stories, make sure to link them cohesively and not jumping from place to place while confusing the hell out of audiences. And also, next time, please do not choose a place like Taft to focus 90% of the story. Even if you do small towns stories, make sure the big cities shots are not neglected for a more complete effect.

For some reason, I am compelled to think the film makers were trying to portray Americans largely as a pack of jackals who face a crisis by behaving as abominably as possible -- whether hoarding necessities and selling them at wildly inflated prices or instantly turning uncivilized and taking shots at one another. Perhaps it is a cry against social perversity, nonetheless, it is still missing a comparison with how other countries are dealing with the threat.

The special effects of the meteors are spectacular at times but too few to mention. One last thing, endings are meant for closures or at least a corridor to a sequel. This ending was ineffective in either case. I would assume after a life-threatening event, people will think more about what they really want to do and how they want to live their lives. Instead of focusing on the few characters which did not seem to have much of a change other than being a little grateful, it would be more interesting to see how people are coping with life after the crisis, what they are doing to prevent a similar future threat and perhaps how social mentality have changed.