Such a shame that a decent, if far-fetched, idea was wasted by truly dreadful execution. SyFy have made some tolerable movies, a lot of bad ones and an even larger amount of trash. Firequake is in the trash category and one of their worst in a long time.
Firequake is a very cheap-looking movie, everything looks very drab and the camera work and editing looks as if composed in a hurry. The special effects fare even worse, yes it is low budget but is that a good enough excuse for a lack of effort and the effects looking so fake and like they belong somewhere else? Not to me. The music is incredibly generic and sometimes like a monotonous drone, nothing interesting or memorable here.
Even by SyFy standards, the script is very stilted and cliché-ridden, with forced attempts at humour, lots of gibberish passing for sci-fi and logic, plodding and often irrelevant exposition and painfully ham-fisted melodrama. The story is dull and manages to be both ridiculous and over-serious. The idea is decent but it all feels half-baked and without any tension or sense. The characters are cardboard and even more clichéd than the writing, some managing to be annoying(especially the main teenage character), while the direction is flat and the acting is a mess of overwrought and completely disengaged.
Overall, had potential but a disaster all round. 1/10 Bethany Cox
Firequake is a very cheap-looking movie, everything looks very drab and the camera work and editing looks as if composed in a hurry. The special effects fare even worse, yes it is low budget but is that a good enough excuse for a lack of effort and the effects looking so fake and like they belong somewhere else? Not to me. The music is incredibly generic and sometimes like a monotonous drone, nothing interesting or memorable here.
Even by SyFy standards, the script is very stilted and cliché-ridden, with forced attempts at humour, lots of gibberish passing for sci-fi and logic, plodding and often irrelevant exposition and painfully ham-fisted melodrama. The story is dull and manages to be both ridiculous and over-serious. The idea is decent but it all feels half-baked and without any tension or sense. The characters are cardboard and even more clichéd than the writing, some managing to be annoying(especially the main teenage character), while the direction is flat and the acting is a mess of overwrought and completely disengaged.
Overall, had potential but a disaster all round. 1/10 Bethany Cox