Absolute Zero (2006)

If you can overlook a number of inaccuracies with respect to the scientific information presented, the movie "Absolute Zero" (2006) offers an entertaining bit of diverting disaster plot fare. It provides content well suited to a family viewing audience, without offensive language, graphic sex scenes or needless crudity. Some scenes stretch credibility, yet the movie as a whole discusses a potentially timely geophysical concern which had not obtained a lot of recent public discussion in the news media.The plot unfolds in a structured manner, with tension rising until near the very end of the plot. Additionally, the central characters, although sometimes a bit stereotyped, generally behave according to traits and personality flaws presented early in the course of the drama. The conflict between the protagonist and the chief antagonist (a force of Nature) originates clearly within the first few minutes.The actors and actresses provide entertaining, sincere depictions. Some of the obvious errors in production, such as scientists in Antarctica wearing insufficient protective gear or violating basic safety protocols with aplomb indeed do stretch credibility, as do some of the special effects. (But since it has been a long time since the most recent magnetic pole shift, portraying one of those events in a realistic manner likely involves considerable technical challenges.)"Absolute Zero" clearly indicates why weather-related subjects and global warming issues should concern the public. The final few moments of the film indeed seem almost reminiscent of a timeless Old Testament theme, Lot's wife breaking the instruction to not look backwards. The inability of modern people to refrain from imposing a materialistic, profit-driven perspective in analyzing serious issues of public safety may perhaps constitute one of the underlying themes of the film.

To start with the obvious - the science portrayed in this movie is absolute nonsense. Now that in itself doesn't mean the movie will be a disaster. "The Day After Tomorrow" (which is probably as close as there is to a movie that resembles this, although those responsible for TDAT wouldn't appreciate the comparison!) also had nonsensical science, but it also had an otherwise decent story, characters to root for and some pretty good performances. This movie, unfortunately, had a dreadful and uninteresting story, characters nobody could possibly care about and lousy performances. The story - such as it is - revolves around a sudden and unexpected reversal in the earth's magnetic field. Now I know that every few hundred thousand years the earth's magnetic field reverses, and I also know that some scientists believe that we're at the beginning of another shift. But it doesn't happen in a day or a few hours or whatever the timeline here was. And while I can see that a shift in the earth's magnetic field might cause havoc with the climate, I didn't really understand why the areas affected (which was the equatorial region and specifically Miami, where the movie was set) would see the temperatures drop to absolute zero (yes - 0 Kelvin or -273.15 Celsius or -459.67 Fahrenheit or whatever other scale you want to use.) Why "absolute zero?" Why not just "really, really cold?" That would have worked just as well.But I guess that's the problem. Even though it might have worked just as well, this movie wouldn't work, no matter what you did. It was just downright awful. I have to give the producers credit for honesty, though, even though the "honesty" was certainly unintentional. This is one of the very few movies I've come across where the title actually sums up the merit of the movie. Unfortunately, the title doesn't reflect a possible vote on this website. (1/10)

I'm not going to talk about the admittedly silly premise of the film, because it happens to be similar to the premise on which Val Guest built "The Day the Earth Caught Fire," a very good sci-fi/disaster anti-nuke drama from the early '60s. Guest demonstrated that the way to deal with a silly 'scientific' premise was to unravel it gradually, having no one accept it on face value, until it could no longer be denied; while concentrating your film-making abilities on the dramatic interaction between well-developed characters, supplying them with a convincing visual backdrop of the world eroding into chaos.Well that certainly doesn't happen in this film. The reason other reviewers can complain about the silly premise is because there isn't really anything else to the film - the characters are flat, the dialog just streams of clichés, the dramatic interaction unbelievable when not completely absent - and the premise itself is handled very badly.That leaves the question of whether the film presents a convincing visual backdrop of the imminent disaster of Miami suddenly freezing over. Question? actually, it's a joke.Here's the tell-all moment about the budgeting of the film and the incompetence with which it is made - I think it half, but I remember the percentage higher, of the shots used to depict the effect of Miami's freezing and the response of the population there are localized on a single hotel swimming pool. That's right, a swimming pool, and a rather small one (low budget hotel for a low budget movie). The 20 or 30 people around it (popular swimming pool!) are swimming or lying around on deck chairs - then the camera shakes, and people get out of the water and people fall into the water and the camera shakes some more and people run around and scream - cut to CGI of birds eye view of Florida freezing over, cut to swimming pool cut to a small bit of beach front with obvious fake snow on it, back to the swimming pool, cut to the central characters trying to find each other through cell phones, then back to the swimming pool - it was amusing until it became patently obvious that the film-makers didn't care about their movie, didn't care to entertain their audience, only cared about getting paid for filling up a time-slot on a cable TV channel....I admit that the first half of the film, particularly the episodes in the Antarctic are fairly well handled for a B-movie. But Once the film returns to Miami for the remainder, it sinks to a level of casual incompetence that only television allows for.Not even a decent time-waster; I stayed just to see how dumb it could get. It gets pretty dumb, believe me.

OK i just saw this movie because it was so boring at work and it was the only one that would download...having said that i read the reviews of other people and agree it was a terrible movie bad writing bad acting bad effects...but i cant get over the fact that people are commenting on the fact that the shifting of the poles is impossible...well lets see now how many movies out there have a script or plot that is improbable or impossible just like the big budget star packed Armageddon where they send a group of oil well drillers to an asteroid do drill a big hole to blow it up...right because that happens every week...i just had to get that off my chest.