User Reviews

I am a big fan of disaster movies, and thus, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about the 'facts'. As far as I'm concerned ALL disasters movies are full of inaccuracies.

When I view disasters movies I get to a point where I just watch for the story line. This is one of those movies.

It's not the worst disaster movie I've ever watched and I would actually watch this again if I was bored.

I would have liked seeing a lot more of the carnage wreaked upon the various cities though. I'm just a sucker for watching the Eiffel Tower fall I guess, which usually happens in movies of this type, although I don't recall it happening here specifically.

This movie spent a lot of time focusing on a couple different story lines about various people, and I guess that was OK.

Not the best disaster movie, but not the worst. As long as you aren't a nitpicker.

This miniseries gets off to a good start. No wasting time with the usual getting to know all the characters and their irrelevant plot lines. Right away, we see that in Mexico, Dr. Lehman and Imogene O'Neil discover that the asteroid Kassandra, 60 miles across, is headed straight for Earth after a collision with a comet knocks it off course. Not to mention the fact that debris from the collision is about to rain down on Earth causing chaos of biblical proportions. The asteroid itself, of course, is the main concern (no, despite the title, it's not a meteor)-- life on Earth will end if Dr. Lehman is right and the asteroid cannot be stopped.

Dr. Chetwyn (who fired Dr. Lehman because he was a nut) gets a disturbing phone call in the middle of the night. Yes, it's that urgent. The country (actually, the world) has only days to stop doomsday. A group of military and scientific experts get together somewhere in the desert. Wait, don't Russia and China have a stake in this ... ?

Then the miniseries starts wasting time on irrelevant plot lines.

Most of the characters have some connection with the small town of Taft, California--and, in fact, except for Central Command, all the action is taking place in Taft by the last 20 minutes. Taft is the one location on land that gets hit by a meteor in the first round (specifically, the Hapscomb farm), and its citizens are the unfortunate victims of a disproportionate number of hits later on. Taft Police Chief Crowe has a son Jack who is an LAPD detective. The younger Crowe's partner Det. Calvin Stark has gone off the deep end after suffering a loss, and he wants everyone, especially Det. Crowe, to know how he feels. Det. Stark's crime spree claims almost as many victims as the meteors, if you only count those who appear on screen. Also, Det. Crowe's daughter Jenny is on her way to the family's isolated vacation cabin with her boyfriend.

Dr. Lehman and Imogene have to return to the United States! Only they--yes, only they!--know what's going on and how to predict where Kassandra will hit. And the obstacles that must be overcome for the other scientists and the military to get this vital information--unbelievable! Only in a satire of disaster movies could the writers have come up with this many difficulties. The scientists and the military can't even be CONTACTED? REALLY?

One of the more interesting story lines involves the Hapscomb family. The mother is a doctor at the hospital, and her son Michael just happens to be around when another one of the meteors hits. And there is a third meteor and a fourth by the time it's all over. That's just in Taft. The second and third meteors give us an interesting rescue situation. Meteor number four also produces some excitement. Those are just the ones we see hitting Taft.

I did mention the disaster reached biblical proportions. On the news they say the recovery could cost trillions. Thousands are already dead and we still have the big threat coming.

And every possible obstacle standing in the way of stopping it. The climax is very exciting and will keep you guessing right until the very end. Not the very end of the miniseries, because there's about five minutes left after the action is all over.

Getting off the subject of the meteors and Kassandra, the Det. Stark story might have made a good movie in and of itself. Michael Rooker does a pretty good job as the insane cop. But for the most part, his story is just plain irrelevant.

Despite its problems, this movie features a number of fine actors. Christopher Lloyd does his usual quality work as Dr. Lehman, but he's not on enough. I'm not sure what to say about Jason Alexander. He received lots of praise as a bumbling moron with low self-esteem and a temper. Therefore, I think it's fair to say he does a good job here. Yes, I do mean the world is relying on George Costanza to save it. Getting back to Dr. Lehman being fired: I said above "he was a nut." Read it carefully. No, I don't think I made a mistake.

Stacy Keach gives the standout performance. With good material, I think it would have been Emmy caliber. He still manages to be better than what he is given, and he makes the miniseries worth seeing.

Ernie Hudson also does a good job as the general in charge of destroying Kassandra. The poor man. And there's an Asian lieutenant who at least has good writing. Plus she's cute.

Other good performances come from the actors playing a Mexican truck driver, a border official named Murphy, and an old woman with a rotary phone and a son in the military.

Marla Solokoff (as Imogene) is pretty to look at. She has a couple of good scenes. Actually, if you just want to laugh at her troubles (it's tempting), I guess she has a lot of good scenes.

The visual effects are better than average for TV. I'm not sure the sheer size of Kassandra is really communicated, but the detail is magnificent. I'll bet it looks good on a big screen.

The military fires nearly everything they have at just the meteors (but save some for Kassandra!), and that's pretty impressive to watch. Some of them get through, and the catastrophic damage to big cities sure looks real. Actually, it's no worse than some of our more destructive hurricanes.

We are told where everything is by what appear to be satellite photos which start out showing a large area, and then the camera appears to zoom in on the exact location. It's effective, I suppose, but I found it annoying.

It's not a total disaster, despite its problems.

I don't understand how so many proved actors could be associated with such an amateurish, embarrassingly bad show. I mean, this is "pre-Film School" amateur, not even "I graduated with a C-average from Film School" bad.

Really, how did Christopher Loyd, Billy Campbell, Jason Alexander, and Ernie Hudson get roped into this? Did they read the script? Did they miss the part that said, "Car runs out of gas. Smoke pours out of the engine."

It also occurred to me that one of the biggest downfalls of these cheesy mini-series is the music. I counted at one point, in a 30-second clip, they changed the music 4 times for painfully obvious cues: perky music for the teenager--cut to: hopeful music for the family--cut to: dark music for the meteors hurtling to earth--cut to: suspenseful music for the frustrated scientist. A touch of subtlety would do wonders for these horrific productions.

I thought the "Impact" mini-series was bad, but boy, this one made that look like pretentious art.

This is quite possibly the worst made for TV movie ever and I'm even throwing in some Lifetime movies to come up with that.

Yes it does have a good cast, but GOD, please write some decent dialog for them. And how can 1 plot point turn up over and over again. The vehicle running out of gas was used twice. The funniest part was the vehicle that ran out of gas and the next scene shows them with the hood up and the thing has overheated. I HATED how the transition animation kept being used to switch from location to location. I guess they had to eat up time to split this garbage over 2 nights.

Back to the cast: the "big name" actors did an okay job, but the new faces that were featured need to try to have themselves digitally removed if they want to continue with a career. Terrible acting and terrible dialog are a bad combination.

I could go on and on.

According to the "Full cast and crew" list, the "writer" is known primarily for "writing" the scripts for "WWF Smackdown" or whatever one calls that fake wrestling crap. It shows--absolutely no subtlety or depth, nothing original, cardboard characters, standard disaster-movie format (various soap-operas wrapped around a catastrophe), minimal science and generally speaking, nothing worth recommending. I'd give it one star, but some of the special effects were tolerable. Barely. So if you're bored--and boy, you'd have to be REALLY bored--go ahead and watch it. Drugs and booze might help, but you'd have to do dangerous levels to even come close to enjoying this gobbler...and then, you'd probably just fall asleep. Which might be best.

I totally disagree with the previous comment. This movie actually changed my outlook on life, love and relationships with it's deeply touching and prophetic story line. This film is so much more than a movie about space rocks highlighted by crappy special effects while simultaneously starring the guy from Back to the Future (1985), it is a sermon for the soul. It's a treatise on the very things that make us human beings. If these clowns can't see the splendor in the simple things - the love between a mother and a child, the unending passion a scientist has for his work, the strife and hardship faced by our military men and women the world over - then save your time and don't comment on or watch movies. This movies strikes right to the core of what we would be faced with should 114 Kasandra actually list out of orbit and smash into our outer atmosphere. We're talking about serious calamity in a time when people need to really "snap out of it" and get involved. This one is a real winner in my book - it's a far cry better then that drivel they made with Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis. If you love sci-fi you've got to get your hands on Meteor...

People like me that like astronomy, and read a few hours a week or month on the subject, don't really watch films like Meteor for the stellar dialogue or plot twists. We watch it because we like to see comets, asteroids and so on and that's primarily our interest. While the film and script might be lacking in certain areas, that's not our primary concern. It's also a fictional account of something that is very real and will happen again sooner or later.

I enjoyed all types of these films from this genre and while Armaggedon might have had bigger stars and better special effects- not to mention a more implausible story line, it was nevertheless entertaining. When I am seeing a disaster film I do not necessarily look for Oscar material.

What can you say positive about this movie. Absolutely nothing. Trying to shoot down meteor's with hand-held SAM (Surface to Air Missile) is ludicrous. Stingers only travel at Mach 2.2 about 2,000 miles and hour and meteors travel at over 4,000 miles per hour. You would only get about 3 seconds to see the meteor, for the missile to acquire the target, and fire, and that would only apply if the meteor was flying directly at you. This is just one of many factual errors in the movie. The town sheriff Stacey Keach has seen better days. Several times one of the towns low-life's threaten Stacey but he chooses to ignore the guy. Even when this low-life threatens him with a gun. Just one of the many ludicrous plot twists in this horrible movie. Like another poster has said if you were on drugs this movie might be a little interesting but you would be better off sleeping through it.

When an asteroid collides on a huge meteor changing its trajectory to Earth, our planet is doomed for destruction.

"Meteor" is one of the dumbest movies I have ever seen. The awful and corny story is a crap and the characters are ridiculous, with imbecile scientists, stupid military responsible for the missiles, Michael Rooker performing his usual stereotype and last but not the least, the genius Imogene O'Neil. There is also political crap.

This unbearable film was released in Brazil in an edited DVD with 109 minutes running time and it was painful to watch; imagine the 240 minutes version. My vote is one (awful).

Title (Brazil): "Meteoro - O Futuro Está em Jogo" ("Meteor - The Future is at Stake")

This movie makes Ben Stein's creation 'Expelled' look like cutting edge science. It also makes Ben Stein look like a genius.

The movie jumps from one ludicrously idiotic decision to another. For instance the professor that found the meteor apparently has crucial data on it that no one else has. It never strikes his mind to make a copy. Or e-mail it. Or anything a normal person would do.

Instead he goes on a day long car drive after exclaiming the meteor will hit in perhaps a day...

After he gets killed stupidly, his assistant manages to hitch a ride with a truck. She never tells the driver anything, and when he decides he wants to be with his family, she's like: "Oh sure, go be with your family, I'll find my way there". Apparently ignorant to the fact that they'll all be INCINERATED if she doesn't get there fast...

Beyond this, the script writer probably can't even spell the word science (For the love of god, they try to 'obliterate' a moon sized rock with SAM missiles... In the atmosphere?!). And yes. It gets worse.

I don't know how I managed to watch (read: survive) this entire movie, but I strongly suggest you do not try to as well.

As a last minute edit, in line with other reviewers, I too believe that the actors made the very best they could of this movie. The acting was quite decent!

First of all I am a 53 year old science fiction buff/veteran, I have seen them all - US and European A and B sci-fi drive in movies. You're not going to get it any straighter than from me.

"Meteor" (2009) with Jason Alexander is so horrible I couldn't wait for the commercials!!! Don't waste your time watching this piece of crap. Who ever wrote the script has no sense of story structure, no retained memory space for thinking out a plot, and just flat out no writing abilities at all. The casting director should have been fired on day one... A herd of big name has-beens, a bus load of no names, and of all things, Jason "GEORGE" Alexander as a astrological scientist... Please!!!

In all honesty I watched part -1 with hopes it would improve, it didn't. So I gave part-2 the benefit of the doubt... couldn't make it past the first hour. Nothing made a good story, no suspense - "Here comes a giant meteor, quick blow it up... Okay - world saved. Take a break everyone, oh, here comes another one".... ZZZZzzzz........

If this was NBC's attempt to top ABC's IMPACT, it didn't even come close. Impact wasn't that great either, but I'd give it a C+ vs F- for METEOR. The only thing good I will say about Meteor was Stacy Keetch, he gave it the old college try... the rest of the cast was a wash.

First off, Me and A LOT of other people totally disagree with the previous comment.. This miniseries is horrific. They butchered the whole concept.. Everything is pretty much wrong in this miniseries. The acting is 'ok', but the script and the screenplay is totally bull. It feels like the writers sat down and drank themselves ass-faced and pretty much doodled through the whole script. I couldn't concentrate on the story because of all the sick things that were happening, and because of the totally off course lines that randomly popped in everywhere. I was literally sitting there pulling my hair off by the end.

That's really a good one. Sure its long, and sure, some of the subplots are not thaaat interesting, but it's still a good movie.

There are a few things who strike most.

1. The effects are very good for a low budget TV production.

2. Some of the actors are very well known, and the overall acting is not bad.

3. The most important one is, the movie shows very well, how people can change and react in the face of imminent danger. Most for the worse, some for the better.

There are some flaws of course. Some of the events are caught in a very unlikely causality chain, which creates some points, where you think: "Come on! Gimme a break!". Also some of the subplots are not THAT interesting, and in the second half, i skipped a few minutes to see how the main plot progresses.

But in summary i say its worth watching. I enjoyed it, despite the negative comments.

Strictly for laughs, but it entertains so well on that basis. It's yet another rampaging rock from the cosmos, ready to blast us all.

A hodge-podge of "intertwining" human interest soap opera subplots parade by as the meteor inexorably wends its way towards the 3rd rock from the sun: 1) the physicist who's doing a Perils of Pauline impression. She's the key to survival or destruction, as she races the meteor to her goal. She's in and out of every life-or-death situation you can imagine, mostly contrived clichés that are so routine after a while they become ridiculous.

2) Army guys and scientists argue about how to use nukes. No comment necessary on this item; just have a good laugh. 3) There's a good cop and a bad cop running around trying to croak each other. It has absolutely nothing to do with the rogue meteor plot, and you keep wondering if this pointless side line will ever be tied in to what's going on.

Conveniently, there's always a dropped cell phone call. This happens so much you'll expect that cell-phone salesman guy with the horn rimmed glasses and 500 friends behind him to pop up out of the bushes. Nobody buys gas any more apparently, so every car in the movie runs out of gas in important situations (look for the character who notes the empty tank and then looks under the hood for some odd reason). Beware of meteor shards that zoom into nearby impact at just the right moment to drive the plot along. Scientific inaccuracies, as expected, are numerous.

At least it's as free as it is brainless. Plenty of fun, too.

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When a meteor threatens earth the world's fate is in the hands of a few brave postal workers moonlighting as top flight astro defenders. All around them chaos reigns and damsels are in distress! But fear not brave watchers, there are plenty of gun toting rednecks and redneck cops to keep it spicy. Plus the good lord is there to save them.... All the way!

One of the funniest things I've watched in ages!