Meteor Storm

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Rating 1


Directed by Tibor Takács

Written by Peter Mohan

Starring Michael Trucco (Colonel Tom Young), Kari Matchett (Dr Michelle Young), Kirsten Prout (Kara Young), Brett Dier (Jason Young), Eric Johnson (Kyle Pember), Lara Gilchrist (Lena), Emily Holmes (Laura), Travis Nelson (Brad), Kevein McNulty (General Brock) and Viv Leacock (Colonel Jack Clancey)


San Francisco prepares for what should be a spectacular meteor shower speeding across the night sky. Astro-physicist Dr Michelle Young is angry when her estranged husband Tom forgets to collect their two teenage children, Kara and Jason, to bring them to see the display. However, instead of the spectacular display everyone was expecting, this is the first of a series of deadly meteor storms that threatens to destroy San Francisco and wipe out the population. Michelle and Tom have to put their difference aside to work with the US Military to find a solution – and rescue their kids.

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I am not a regular viewer of the Sci-Fi Channel, but I have watched enough “SyFy” movies to know exactly what to expect and yet I still cannot stop myself from hoping that the next one I watch will not be as laughably bad as the last one. So it was with ‘Meteor Storm’, which I watched because it stars Kari Matchett. This isn’t the worst example I have seen, but it was just a jumble of ridiculous clichés and pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Michael Trucco, who starred in ‘Battlestar Gallactica, which I have never seen a single episode of, is the all-action hero here. We know this because he wears a leather jacket and rides around on a Harley. When he is not riding the Harley he is driving around in a Hummer. He rescues a pregnant woman from an overturned vehicle just seconds before it blows up. He rescues his wife from a downed helicopter – just seconds before it blows up. He rescues his children, who are trapped in an elevator, and his daughter’s boyfriend, who is sick and trapped in an apartment, just moments before the entire building collapses. However, to show that he’s only human, he fails to save his wife’s sister, who is driving across the Golden Gate Bridge when it is hit and destroyed by a meteor storm. As it happens, something that is conveniently overlooked, she would probably have safely got to the other side had it not been for Michelle calling her on her cell-phone while she was driving and screaming at her to get off the bridge, something that caused her to crash.

I cannot be too critical because it is not as if I do not know exactly what to expect when I watch these things, but ‘Meteor Storm’ leaves no cliché overlooked and has no sense of humour to alleviate the grimness of it all. It’s competently made, but wholly unimaginative.

Review posted 12 April 2010


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