Yes, you read the title right, Asteroid-a-Geddon. And with a title like that, it’s got to be from The Asylum, with all that that implies. And since there were no reviews on IMDB, I figured somebody had to get the word out. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would be more like Monster Hunters than Shark Season.
A giant asteroid is scheduled to strike Earth in the next fifty days. A multinational summit led by General Quinn (Eric Roberts, Hide in the Light, Angels Fallen) is informed by the Russian delegate that his country has unilaterally decided to launch nukes at it. Of course, they don’t work, they just broke off lots of chunks that will hit Earth before the asteroid.
In Chile, where the first of these fragments will hit Alexandra Svoboda (Veronika Issa, Fast and Fierce: Death Race), one of the world’s most brilliant metallurgists and her team are conducting research. Her estranged father, billionaire Nicolas (Rick Williamson, Axeman 2: Overkill, Death Factory) contacts her just before they strike. She agrees to come home and work on a solution.
Not far from the summit Divine Will, a group of heavily armed, combat-trained, Christian Fundamentalists are gathered under the leadership of Malachi (Craig Gellis, The Thompsons, Boned). They believe the asteroid is the work of God, and it’s their duty to make sure it reaches Earth.
Now, this sounds like the makings of a fairly exciting film right? The military is throwing nukes around in space. Dedicated scientists racing the clock to save the world from Asteroid-a-Geddon . And armed fanatics trying to stop both teams. And the occasional giant meteorites wreaking havoc on everyone.
Instead, writer/director Geoff Meed (The Amityville Haunting, 4 Horsemen: Apocalypse) serves up loads of talk punctuated by brief sequences featuring mostly awful effects. I mean awful as in Meteor had better effects back in 1979. And it had Sean Connery. Asteroid-a-Geddon has crap CGI and Eric Roberts.
Most of Asteroid-a-Geddon’s limited action scenes are ridiculous. Did you know covering your head with your arms will save you from meteorites? Or that an SUV can outrun a tsunami?
And those heavily armed religious nutters? They stick to hacking into Svoboda’s computers for most of the movie. And when that doesn’t work? Malachi decides to make a solo attack, so the rest of his troops will be around to deal with the End of Days. And his “attack” is limited to slapping Alexandra around while yapping about God’s plan for mankind. My bad for expecting even a small firefight from The Asylum.
Even by The Asylum’s low standards, Asteroid-a-Geddon is the bottom of the barrel. And it seems even they knew it. Rather than one of their regular directors they gave this to Meed whose only other stint as a director was nine years ago. And apart from Roberts, there’s none of the company’s usual past their prime celebs or familiar stock players. They grabbed whoever was around and tossed them in front of the camera.
Asteroid-a-Geddon doesn’t even try to be exciting like Monster Island, which also has Roberts in the cast, or Flight 666. They at least had scenes that could have been exciting if done right. This has very few effects scenes and even fewer of them are action scenes. It also doesn’t have the so stupid it’s funny appeal of Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. I don’t know that playing it for laughs could have helped, but certainly couldn’t have been worse than what we got. This is just dull, talky crap that never even gets mildly interesting let alone exciting.
Asteroid-a-Geddon is available to stream, but there’s no reason why you should make yourself suffer like that. If you do think of a reason, you can check The Asylum’s Facebook page for more details.