Supernova
release year: 2005 TV movie
genre: disaster action/drama
viewing setting: home DVD, 10/7/07
synopsis: Slowly but surely, the world's population learns that the sun is going to explode soon, and chaos ensues.
impressions: This was reasonably fun to watch, but it has problems if you look beneath the surface and turn your brain on. When faced with the extinction of the human race, most people would recognize that a series of deep, self-sustaining underground cities filled with the more productive members of society is a good thing - but not Luke Perry's character. Excuse me, but isn't 5% of the world's population surviving a better outcome than zero? Another tough plot point is the way the supernova threat is eventually "fixed" - utter foolishness. My last complaint has to do with the anticlimactic murderer-on-the-loose-and-after-the-main-character's-wife subplot...such things mean little in the face of a supernova ending all life on Earth. Good points: multiple fire-from-the-sky destruction scenes.
something this movie has that no other movie has: The Phoenix Project, which has been going on for half a century and involves the above-mentioned underground cities to house enough of the world's population to avoid extinction.
acting: Luke Perry is the younger scientist, who can't always seem to get his priorities right. Tia Carrere is a somewhat-evil government employee. Lance Henriksen is the head of the Phoenix Project and is a bit more evil. Peter Fonda is the first scientist to figure out that the sun's going to explode, so he heads to a tropical island and picks up a woman half his age.
final word: Decent, but could have been better.
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