CAT.8

Well, where to start ... First off, this is the most scientific inaccurate movie I've ever seen. Not only that, they are butchering it to a degree where it gets pretty hilarious. OK, to be fair we don't know what happens if we shoot high energy stuff into the Sun. But if that was the only thing ... Secondly, there are several goofs. For instance there is a scene where they show something on a computer monitor which was supposed to be their "software" and you shortly see a "play / pause / stop / ffwd ..." toolbar appearing in the bottom right of the monitor. Or when Beverly and Jack Hillcroft had the car accident because of an EMP discharge, the lights of the car were still on when they left it. Etc, etc, etc. There are lots of these little things. But still, even tho the movie has a pretty generic plot and an interpretation of science which is ridiculous, I still gave it a chance and it had something which kept me watching for that 3 hours. There was nothing wrong with the actors or their acting. Even the idea isn't that bad (at least of the first half), but just poorly realized. I mean we don't have that much "Sun doomsday movies", do we? The acting wasn't Oscar-worthy, but still good enough to get you connected to the characters, their story, their hopes, sorrows and happiness. Also the CGI was pretty good. I've seen worse in Hollywood movies (*cough* Hobbit *cough*). The biggest problem this movie has is clearly the realization of their plot and script and their interpretation of science. I think in the 70's and 80's this movie would be great, because today we have a far more advanced standard of knowledge, of our planet and the Sun, etc. So therefore the common audience today expects more accurate "fiction", so to say. Second, its length. It was obviously supposed to be a two-part movie. However, they offer it as one 3h movie in Amazon Prime. You can of course split it in two sessions, if you like. But I guess most viewers who quit after the first half didn't watch the second half anyway. So what ... I think the movie would have been better received if they spent more time carving out the script and maybe talking to college physics and geology students about how to realize that scenario so that it could work. Personally I think it was worth watching. I would recommend the movie to those who have already seen everything and don't know what to watch.

In addition to all the scientific malarkey discussed previously....the script is infantile, amateurish......can I be more direct. Where do they find these writers? The concept had a lot of potential as a real good suspense drama...but they had to put in lines like "it's really deep"...about the chasm. And the world is about to end but Mathew M and his partner scientist spend time re-connecting.....wow!!! An elite task force with automatic weapons is held off by two citizens with handguns. I know that they likely did not have the $ that a series like "24" has, but lord have mercy it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put together a realistic, mature screenplay. I could go on and on about the silliness of the script but I'm too ticked off about a potentially good story being wasted away by such infantile dialog and situations. Simply infantile!!

I watched this film yesterday with queasy disbelief. The simple fact is that nothing - but nothing - can fly between the earth and the sun in less than 8 minutes. That isn't susceptible to "as far as we know", either. It is the basis of one of the most tested, verified and successful scientific theories of all time. Even if a massive CME had been caused immediately by the incoming glittery beam of science-stuff, it could not have reached the earth in less than 16 minutes. And the sun is so big that like a big container ship, it doesn't exactly turn on a sixpence. By the time anything happened, the affected part of the sun would have turned away from the earth, and the CME would have missed. I would have had a lot more respect if there had been an "omigod" moment and a prediction that something nasty was coming in, say, 24 hours, and the film wouldn't have had to run for 24 hours to show it either. This is only one little point in a film I begrudge having spent the time to watch it. IMO it is a turd sandwich with really thin slices of bread either side. Saying, "hey, it's just SCIENCE FICTION, Negative Nancy" does not relieve the film of the responsibility to have at least one foot planted firmly in plausibility. They could have done this properly at no greater cost, with no impact on the story, and I would have given them kudos for having done so. No plausibility, no kudos. This film's nonsensical trashing of the scientific method does not render it any the more entertaining. It's just sloppy, rushed-looking and tedious. I shan't be watching it again.

Out of the four mini-series personally viewed in the past two weeks airing on the SyFy channel, CAT.8 is better than Ring of Fire(though at least that had Terry O'Quinn) and especially the irredeemably terrible Meteor with Christopher Lloyd. But of the four the best was Eve of Destruction, although that was a long way from great that looked reasonably good and at least four of the actors were convincing. CAT.8 also has some better-than-average acting, Matthew Modine is a commendable lead, and the production values(apart from some hokey effects) are reasonable, basic though with some signs of atmospheric. On the whole however CAT.8 doesn't work. What really lets things down is the story and the science. To say that the science is questionable is an understatement in itself, if anything it is a disaster, so bad that experts would feel tempted to bail out halfway through the first half. It honestly sounded like the writers were making things up with no research and it was very difficult to believe any of it. As a result the story was implausible and had little if any credibility. Unfortunately also for the story it didn't feel enough to sustain the three hours, so it felt like a thin structure interwoven with a lot of padding, ham-fisted melodrama/exposition, underdeveloped sub-plotting and an overlong length. If you think the first half takes too long to get going and is implausible, wait until you see the second half, like with the Meteor, Ring of Fire and even Eve of Destruction it gets increasingly dull and illogical. The script is underwritten, cheesy and very awkward, another one of those instances where it came through clearly that the writers hadn't properly checked to see whether what they'd written and given the actors made sense. The music is turgid and unmemorable, the pacing is pedestrian and stretches the story out too much, the characters are nowhere near developed enough which is inexcusable for a mini-series of this length and generally CAT.8 feels under-directed and characterless. On the whole, there is worse out there but this was rather poor stuff, the best assets are the production values and the acting but the story, script, pacing and especially the science bog things down considerably. 3/10 Bethany Cox

I caught this on TV under the title Cat. 8: Armageddon. It's a SyFy Channel disaster movie made in a two-part miniseries format rather than the usual slot. Otherwise, all of the plot elements are the same as you'd see in a usual movie. This one was filmed in Canada like many others (blame the tax breaks) and surprisingly doesn't feel slow despite the three-hour running time. The story is about a failed scientific experiment affecting the Sun and causing solar flares to strike Earth. Attempts to fix the problem only serve to make things worse when the planet stops spinning on its axis. Of course, the only person with the power to save the world is a renegade scientist, played by screen veteran Matthew Modine. Half of the running time follows Modine and his friends and family attempting to evade the ruthless authorities who plan to stop him for no good reason. The other half involves the President attempting to keep a control on things. There's also a human villain, the Secretary of Defense, working for his own ends and only making things worse. The usual gamut of cheap acting and lousy CGI effects plays out, but this is notably more likable than many SyFy efforts, feeling like a throwback to earlier disaster movies such as DEEP IMPACT more than anything else.

Its a shame someone like Mathew Modine was suckered into this. He is good as usual at keeping a solid character portrayal but thats where it all ends. After that this is probably one of the hardest things I have ever made myself watch. A real lousy implementation of VFX. The fact that his partner did not complain to someone is totally unreal. Let us not forget of course the complete misrepresentation of scientific fact. Finally what happened to the payback against secretary of defense and his sidekick. The ending is a complete let down. Who ever funded this must be regretting it now! Don't waist your time unless you wan to see how not to make a sci-fi. This is more like a bad drama.

At the outset, let it be understood that there is virtually no suspension of disbelief to be found in this sci-fi folly. Science, and science fiction fans more importantly, understand that some scientific capital must be invested in a science fiction narrative to make it at least partially believable. No such investment occurred here, and therein lies the beginning of a bailout that never happened. The absence of suspension of disbelief is well supported. There clearly was a vulgar absence of scientific research within the arena's of the scientific disciplines upon which the (weak) foundation of this cinematic effort was based. Enough of this. Sci-fi fans of any stripe will understand the elements that are lacking. And that would be all of them. Satellites falling from orbit to impact Earth within MINUTES of critical solar events? International Space Station hitting the Earth and delivering an impact equivalent to the destruction delivered by hundreds of megatons of nuclear bombs? The I.S.S. is pretty much comprised of what amounts to little more than aluminum foil. The electro-magnetic effects of solar events assailing the Earth in mere seconds? It's hard not to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of these film elements. Oh wait. I did laugh. Out loud. The acting was careless and amateurish at best. Even veteran actor Matthew Modine delivered a performance that was stiff and over-rehearsed. The characters of the President and Vice President of the United States were just plain spooky and damned creepy. Personally, I feel the characters of the Prez and the Veep required lobotomies. That may seem a radical concept, but they *are* playing US politicians -- the majority of whom have already been lobotomized, I'd venture to guess. If you watch this film to its conclusion, I have the contact number for Lobotomies-R-Us.

I agree completely with Ed Blackadder's review. Why is it so very difficult for the writers of scripts that pretend to be "science" fiction to ask even a serious amateur science enthusiast to review their scripts (I'd do it for free) to catch their innumerable errors and misrepresentations of natural phenomenon? Did the writers of this bad joke sleep through their grade school and high school science classes? Apparently. And they must also believe that everyone else did, too. If you are a SCIENCE fiction fan, you'll want to skip this one unless you want to watch for a few laughs. However, that probably won't hold you through the entire show. I stopped watching to write this after the hilariously wrong satellite sequence about 20 minutes in. Gawd...

As I sat down here in 2023 to watch the 2013 disaster movie "CAT. 8", I had actually never heard about the movie, and thus obviously never seen it either. And with it being a disaster movie, of course I was interested in watching it, though I harbored little expectations to the movie, as the majority of disaster movies turn out to be exactly that; disasters. The storyline in "CAT. 8"m as written by Donald Martin, was actually entertaining enough for what it was. Sure, it was a pretty straight forward, and thus also generic, disaster movie. I mean, you know the outcome of the movie from the moment you start the movie. But the ride from start to end was actually enjoyable for what it turned out to be. Don't expect writer Donald Martin to deliver anything that revolutionize the disaster movie genre, because that was far from the case here. The acting performances in "CAT. 8" were okay. I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list, aside from leading actor Matthew Modine. But I will say that the cast generally put on adequate performances for a movie such as this. Directors Kevin Fair and Sophie Boyer brought a fair enough movie to the screen, as it is simply a lean-back-in-the-seat-munch-on-the-snacks-and-enjoy-the-ride type of movie. You know what you get here, but the movie proved entertaining nonetheless. The ending of the movie was predictable, oh so very, very predictable. And that is something I loathe about disaster movies; how a small group of people always manage to pull through insurmountable odds and come out on the other side and save our world when everything seems doomed. Watchable for what it was "CAT. 8" lands on a five out of ten stars rating from me.