Countdown: The Sky's on Fire (1999)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Dr. Evan (John Corbett), a reputed ecological scientist, was once let go from a government position, for his rather extreme views on ozone depletion. Now, he works out of his own LA area laboratory. His sister Jennifer (Josie Bissett), who is married to a pilot, Racer (Ben Browder), still lives and works near him. One day, Racer is sent to investigate the downing of a small plane in the desert. After finding the aircraft and the passengers/crew deceased, Racer, too, is struck with a mysterious ailment and calls for help. Once paramedics arrives, they escort him straight to the nearest hospital. Doctors are baffled. Meanwhile, a dozen humpback whales are found dead on a nearby beach. At the scene, a brash reporter (Bradley Whitford) asks a lovely biologist, Elizabeth, what has gone wrong. She speculates a virus, until she can further review the situation. However, its she soon discovers the cause was not viral. The whales starved to death. Why? Dr. Evan, now involved, states that according to his data, the ozone layer over a part of the Pacific is lethally thin, warming the water and killing the whale's food source, plankton. Not only that, Los Angeles is also about to "heat up" and cause death and destruction, as the hole is headed that way. Naturally, the government scientist in charge calls it nonsense and tells the mayor that there is no reason to evacuate. But, with birds crashing into windows, insects taking over houses, and fishermen dying on their boats, what can be done? Evan just might have the answer and get a chance to be a true hero. Hurrah! This is a small scale science fiction film from the late nineties that is still entertaining and thought stirring. Corbett makes a great unconventional scientific know-it-all while Bissett is so beautiful and talented that you wonder why she didn't become more of a star. Whitfield and the rest of the cast support them nicely. Of course, there's nothing spectacular about the sets, costumes, camera work, script or direction but they all work together to create a polished, intriguing little film. Do you love science fiction or disaster films? If you've run out of viewing options, get this one.

I'm one of those people who really enjoy schlocky B-movies (I thought Category 6 was a good film) but this is an insult.For a start, the movie grinds to a halt in the middle and features 10 minutes of nonstop riot footage.An infinite number of interesting subplots and ideas are thrown out, and it really feels like the production ran out of money at the end! Watch it, as soon as the jet takes off, the money runs out.The plot is absurd, and not good-absurd either. It's BAD-absurd!! The characters make bad decisions just to build some suspense, for example: if your house is overrun by bugs, lock yourself in the closet and wait in there for the bugs to come in and bite you. The same shot of the sun is repeated at least 15 times, and "deadly atmospheric firestorms" are little more than (over)actors writhing in bright light.

Just saw this movie which ABC showed last night. I liked this better than I liked another recent TV-movie about the earth caving in beneath New Orleans. Both are dopey but this one was a lot of fun. Preposterous? Sure but that is the kick in all of these movies. Everything keeps moving and we see the usual scenes of bureaucratic incompetence, animal panic, people panic and various and sundry calamities. All in all a good entry in the TV-movie disaster genre.

And perhaps it should be left for the scientists to fiddle with. This movie clearly shows that the disaster genre is even more volatile than our ozone layer. If it had been a comedy the sheer unbelievability of this plot would be acceptable, but posing as serious it definitely isn't. So poorly made it is almost tragic."Hey! I have ten minutes to spare. Let's go patch up the environment!"