MOVIE: Polar Storm (2009)

Oh, man, you know what?  It’s just gone.  This movie is GONE.

Here’s what happened:

A few weeks ago, I went down to visit my parents for a long weekend, which, as usual, meant Mom and I rented a hefty stack of movies, many of them, shall we say, somewhat risky.  (Note:  not risqué, as one does not rent such films with one’s mother unless one is weird).  Usually while I watch these movies with Mom, I take notes so I can remember them all later, and usually the ones I take the most notes about are the ones like this one — the hilariously bad ones.

Why?  Because they are the most fun to write about, naturally, and also because every two minutes while I’m watching them, I think about how much I want to tell you guys about the ridiculous thing that one guy just said.  Or the crazy-bad special effects I just saw.  Or the insanely obvious lack of a scientific adviser on deck.  OMG, my peeps, SO BAD!

I took about four pages of notes about Polar Storm and was looking forward to putting this review together and up.  Then I got on the train to go home, stuck my notebook (along with my iPod, argh!) in the seat pocket in front of me, and three hours later, walked off the train leaving both behind.

Bollocks.

Long story short: I have no idea what this movie was about.  This one or most of the others we watched.  BUT, I will now attempt to dig out what I can for you.  We’ll see how I do.

I can start by telling you this made-for-SyFy movie stars Jack Coleman, better known to some of us as “Horn-Rimmed Glasses” (HRG) from Heroes.  And yes, yes, that’s it, it’s coming back to me now — HRG plays a scientist.  An astrophysicist, I believe.

What happens, more or less (I think), is that a piece of a comet breaks off and wallops the Earth.  Somehow, this throws the Earth’s core out of whack.  And, as we all know from watching countless movies just like this one (The Core, for example, or its far superior knock-off Deep Core, which co-stars ex-Boyfriend of the Week Wil Wheaton, some way more plausible science, and a truly admirable amount of awesomely bad dialogue), if you monkey with the Earth’s core, all kinds of bad stuff will happen.

In this story, the core changes start to make the Earth’s magnetic field wonk out (technical term) and HRG becomes convinced the poles are about to reverse.  In (his) theory, this swap will make the magnetic field disappear completely just long enough for the sun’s rays to MELT US.  With FI-YAH!!

Yeah, no, it didn’t really make a lot of sense.  But I did appreciate that it very earnestly tried to.  And though it uses the same exact formula all these types of movies use — bad space/weather/nuclear-accident happens, lone scientist knows what’s up, nobody believes him at first, UNTIL THE FI-YAH!, then they eat a bunch of crow, and finally the scientist is given what he needs to save the world with a knuckle-whitening few seconds to spare — that hardly matters.  That’s what we rent these things for, right?  Plus, the acting in this one is surprisingly decent, and the story pretty satisfying overall.

Definitely one to stick in your pile next time you’re in the mood for a good-bad sci-fi flick to rent.  Which I’m sure is today — think about it for a minute.  Am I right or am I right?  Yeah, I thought so.

[Netflix it | Buy it]

Genre:  Science Fiction, Space Disaster
Cast:  Jack Coleman, Holly Dignard, Tyler Johnston

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Tags: Science Fiction, Space Disaster