To give you an idea how busy I've been so far this summer, the Foyeurism you're about to read below is not the one I had originally intended for this month, but because I've fallen so far behind I had to slap this together. One reason for lack of time to devote to the website due to spending more time at work to cover for the crush of co-workers that picked the past month to go on vacation. Another reason is due to finally getting around to updating the archives page for the first time since last year with somewhere in the neighborhood of around 70 reviews I've written for Dread Central and over on the blog. You can check those out by clicking the ARCHIVES button above. If you're not sure what's new or what reviews you might want to get caught up on, here's a list of movie reviews that have been added.

Under the "BLOG" header:

BA'AL: THE STORM GOD - BEHIND ENEMY LINES: COLOMBIA - CARNY (2009) - THE CURSE OF LIZZIE BORDER II: PROM NIGHT - CYBORG SOLDIER - THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED - FAR CRY - FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY - THE HOTTIE & THE NOTTIE - IMPACT POINT - LOST TREASURE OF THE GRAND CANYON - THE MINIS - NINJA CHEERLEADERS - PUNISHER: WAR ZONE - PUSH (2009) - RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX - STEEL TRAP - STORM CELL - THOR: HAMMER OF THE GODS - TKO (2008) - THE UNBORN (2009)

Under the Dread Central header:

AGAINST THE DARK - ALIEN UPRISING - ANACONDA: TRAIL OF BLOOD - ARE YOU SCARED 2 - ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (2009) - ATTACK GIRLS' SWIM TEAM VS. THE UNDEAD - THE BAND FROM HELL - BASELINE KILLER - BLOOD PREDATOR - BLOOD WARS - BUNDY: A LEGACY OF EVIL - CARNIVOROUS (2009) - CARNIVOROUS (LOCKJAW: RISE OF THE KULEV SERPENT) - CLEAVAGEFIELD - CYCLOPS (2009) - DEADLY MEMORIES - DEAD NOON - DEATH FACTORY: BLOODLETTING - THE DEVIL'S TOMB - DRILLER (2008) - FRANKENHOOD - THE HAPPENING - HYDRA (2009) - JOYRIDE 2: DEAD AHEAD - KEMPER - KILLER BEES (2009) - KILLER NURSE - KISS OF THE VAMPIRE - LEGEND OF THE BOG - MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS - MONSTER MOVIE - NIGHT TRAIN (2009) - PLANET RAPTOR - POCAHAUNTUS - PREY FOR THE BEAST - SCOURGE (2009) - SCREAMERS: THE HUNTING - SEA BEAST - SHARKS IN VENICE - SILENT VENOM - SNAKEHEAD TERROR - SPIKER (2009) - SWAMP DEVIL - THE TRIBE (2009) - VACANCY 2: THE FIRST CUT - WOLVESBAYNE - WYVERN - YETI (2009) - YOU BELONG TO ME - FROM HERE TO OBSCURITY: MAN WITHOUT A BODY

Good grief! I watch entirely too much crap. I should have long since lost my mind by now.

And there will be more to come. Another reason I'm behind is due to having a ton of new Dread Central screeners dumped in my lap just in the last two weeks of June. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. I certainly have been busy.

But on the plus side, I just upgraded to a brand spankin' new laptop. My old laptop is nice, but let me assure you this is a major step up. Like going from 60GB to 250GB, 4400RPM to 7200RPM, an so on. Bigger. Faster. More powerful. This should lead to more audio and video postings. That's the plan, at least. I'm a happy camper.

With July being a month associated with a holiday famous for fireworks and explosions, what better month to spot light two made-for-television disaster flicks loaded with fireworks and explosions. There was going to be a third review but I had to call time. One unleashes hell from below; the other brings death from above. One will soon premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel; the other, shockingly, was not made for the Sci-Fi Channel but I'd be willing to bet you a shiny new bicycle it will be making the rounds on that channel sooner rather than later.

THE DISASTER WILL BE TELEVISED

FIRE FROM BELOW: Kevin Sorbo stars in this harrowing drama chronicling one man's struggle to cope with and overcome the searing pain of his chronic hemmorrhoids.

Andrew Stevens Entertainment presents an Andrew Stevens production of an Andrew Stevens film written in part by Andrew Stevens, possibly catered, best boyed, key gripped by Andrew Stevens as well, with Andrew Stevens’s hair and wardrobe provided by Andrew Stevens. I exaggerate, but, good lord, how many times can one man work his name into the opening credits of a movie he made? Even Uwe Boll has yet to flash his name a half dozen times in an opening credits sequence like Andrew Stevens does here. Stevens even found a way to work himself into a brief on-camera role as the most overly melodramatic matter-of-fact newscaster this side of Kent Brockman.

But I won't complain too much about any possible hubris on Mr. Stevens' part because FIRE FROM BELOW is a hoot and a half. Any disaster movie that features a dude taking a leak in public getting vaporized by fire shooting straight up his urine stream is fine by me. You won't see that in a Roland Emmerich disaster flick. FIRE FROM BELOW. Though if you want to get technical, the fire is from below but attacks from above. And chases people. For miles at a time if need be. Plausibility, your services will not be required this evening.

A military-contracted mining company has uncovered a vein of pure lithium isotope beneath a small Pacific Northwestern hick town. Mining lithium is a big bucks business. Mining lithium is also tricky business because lithium is so highly unstable that when exposed to the atmosphere it can ignite and the lithium flame is attracted to water, preferably the 60% of the human body composed of water. I know this is going to shock many of you, please try to quell your surprise when I tell you that the mining process go horribly awry and the problem only escalates from there.

When this "smart" lithium ignites it sends streams of fire that whip through the air like Chinese New Year dragons until they hone in on a water-based hominid appearing in a Sci-Fi Channel original movie and cremate them. The only warning sign you get that the lithium is about to ignite is the appearance of what looks almost like fireflies floating in the air from whence the lithium fire stream will erupt.

If it looks like Tinkerbell has arrived, better believe your ass is fried.
Clap if you believe in fiery cataclysms!

Now I'm no scientist; I know next to nothing about lithium or how it works, but I do know this is bullshit. When the dialogue comes out of their mouths designed to try and make any of this sound scientifically explainable, the hypothesizing is so obviously nonsense the sounds of their voices could be replaced with birds chirping or that squonking noise Peppermint Patty's teacher spoke with. I am still willing to cut a movie like FIRE FROM BELOW some slack in the scientific mumbo jumbo plausibility department because 1) at least the source of this potential movie catastrophe has a spark of imagination to it and 2) it makes for a profoundly silly slice of disaster b-movie junk food for the soul.

The miners are first to get incinerated. Then random citizens begin getting incinerated. Then random bathrooms explode. Attempts at public urination ends in fiery vaporization. Heck, most of the townsfolk are wiped out by poisonous lithium gas that seeps into the air supply. And then things really take a turn for the worst as the possibility looms that the entire lithium lode might go kaboom in an explosion that would be tantamount to a thermonuclear blast.

To prevent a cataclysm of this magnitude it's going to take someone with a keen intellect and a Herculean constitution. Well, one out of two ain't bad. Enter Kevin Sorbo as a dedicated geologist. Certain actors should never be cast in certain roles. Kevin Sorbo: scientist is a prime example.

On the other hand, Kevin Sorbo as a geologist might not be that big a stretch since there a good number of people out there that would argue the guy has rocks for brains. Never forget that after the first season of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Sorbo the great had the show's executive producer/head writer/series developer fired because he couldn't follow the storylines and believed viewers - the same viewers that made Andromeda the highest rated syndicated action show for that first season - also found the storytelling too complicated. As the saying goes in Hollywood, "the star's always right", so Sorbo got his way and beginning with the second season all the sophisticated science fiction storytelling was replaced with more humor, explosions, and hand-to-hand fighting. The ratings plummeted; the season two drop was so dramatic even the trade magazines reported on the fall. Ratings continued to drop for subsequent seasons. The all-knowing Sorbo blamed the erosion of the ratings on the show not being promoted enough.

"General, according to my calculations, I can safely say we have a total false alarm here. No reason to panic. Nothing to worry about at all. Everything is going to be just fine."

I can see how Sorbo would be drawn to a movie like FIRE DOWN BELOW. I'm sure all Sorbo cared about was knowing this movie involved streams of fire chasing people down streets, through forests, up and down hills, around curves and corners, for seemingly miles at a time.

I can fully understand why Kevin Sorbo would be attracted to this film. After all, FIRE FROM BELOW is a film in which:

1) A fire attack scene has a lithium flame tendril come shooting out of a lake; minutes go by as it chases down a motorboat pulling a water-skier rather than just going straight back down into the water it is supposedly attracted to.

2) Approximately two hundred people in a town will be killed by poisonous gasses generated by the underground lithium vein yet never will we see a single character - military, scientist, or otherwise - wearing a gas mask. Even characters that find themselves trapped underground in close proximity to the source of the vapors will suffer no dire consequences from breathing the air.

3) The primary source of the lithium troubles stem from a lake known as Lost Lake, named so because it is so secluded in the woods. The first time we see Lost Lake - the scene where the motorboat vacationers fall victim - it is an absolutely enormous land-locked lake with buildings clearly visible along the shoreline. From then on, Lost Lake appears as this dinky little pond in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing that Sorbo has to ask directions just to locate.

4) People trapped in geologically unstable underground lithium caverns that could ignite or cave-in at any moment, Sorbo goes down to rescue them by randomly firing a handgun in the cave ceiling hoping they will be able to follow the loud bangs to safety.

5) Being chased by flying fire bearing down on you? Duck into a barn. The lithium fire will strike the wood and be extinguished - the barn does not burn. The explanation Sorbo gives is some nonsense about the lack of moisture in the wood. If so, during the finale when Sorbo had to go down to the source of the lithium vein, my fingers were crossed he'd do so wearing a protective suit of armor built from dead wood.

Yeah, I can definitely see how this appealed to Sorbo. He's obviously a doer, not a thinker.

Never dare Metlar to light one of his farts

That attitude might also be why you'll never find a human being mellower in the face of a potential catastrophe as you will Kevin Sorbo here. If Sorbo's performance got any more laidback he'd cease to be vertical. Two hundred dead bodies, multiple near fatal experiences, a potential cataclysm of unfathomable proportions on the horizon: the biggest rise any of it can get out of Sorbo ranges from mild concern to sounding slightly perturbed. Always good to have a calming, reassuring voice in the face of armageddon but this is ridiculous.

The military (led by Glenn Morshower, 24's Agent Pierce) are not treated like complete chowderheads or obstructionists for a change. Sure, they're willing to bury the good guys alive if need be and concoct a cover story in the news media about a raging wildfire as cover for everything going on - Lord knows why, but for once they're not portrayed a believing all of life's difficulties and can be solved by nuking something.

But in keeping with the rules of modern disaster b-movies, the script does include an evil corporate guy. Well, not so much evil as just greedy and uncaring. Not the typical mustache twirling big business bad o'douche; the owner of the mining corporation has more of a cocky, "yeah, whatever" attitude when talk turns to the calamity caused by his mining operation. Such a limp villain, the only undo consequences he suffers is having a mild guilt trip laid on him.

The actor cast as the mining company CEO possesses so many of David Keith's mannerisms I suspect Andrew Stevens originally offered Keith the role, got turned down, and cast his stand-in instead.

The villain is primarily represented by his right-hand woman, Reign. Yeah, we have a woman named Reign and this is neither a vampire nor a sword & sorcery flick. Kind of felt bad for Alex Meneses; I never could quite figure out what purpose her character served. Don't get me wrong. It's nice seeing the lovely Miss Meneses and all her MILFy goodness, her's remains an ill-defined character. She frequently has a look on her face of an actress who has been given no directions. Understandable, given the script has a hard time deciding whether we're supposed to like or dislike her. Is she a flunky for the bad guy or a whistleblower in the making? Is she angry at Sorbo over how their past relationship ended or is she hoping to rekindle it?

You see Reign also just happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Sorbo's character and she's still a little miffed with him over how he went about breaking up with her. A potential love triangle is set-up between her, Sorbo, and Sorbo's geologist fiancé - the one that gripes about him working too much and frequently quips about vacation spots as he does all the actual geology, but like so many other subplots, it proves every bit as contrived and underdeveloped.

Even the supreme silliness loses steam around the beginning of the third act. Sorbo brings in two fellow geologists to assist him and they arrive just in time to get swallowed up the earth during a major tremor. Entirely too much time is spent watching these two new characters you could not possibly care less about and a random soldier thrown in for extra added disinterest trapped underground in a series of unstable caverns with all manner of flames flaring up, somehow remaining immune to all the smoke and toxic gasses. They're convince if they just keep walking they'll reach the surface where they can join the others as Sorbo and company attempt to talk the potential lithium apocalypse into submission with excessive scientific mumbo jumbo talk.

But then, suddenly, inexplicably, unexplainably, without any warning, the three of them are attacked by a swarm of crazed vampire bats that causes that random soldier to fall (more like leap) from a ledge five-feet to his death and I'm reminded why for the most part I enjoyed watching this clunky, junky, and dumber than a losing contestant on "Are You Smarter than Kevin Sorbo?” movie.

IMPACT (AKA “MOONSTRUCK II: THIS TIME IT’S FOR REAL”)

When the moon hits your eye
As it falls from the sky,
That's Armageddon.

The Moon: long has she awaited a chance to get revenge against her most hated foe: the human race.

Yes, I wrote "she". The moon is most definitely a she. Ever heard about "the man in the moon"? The moon would not allow a man inside of her if she weren't female. Our moon isn't gay like those ones that hang around Jupiter. Io - that's one step away from being named Lady Gaga. Earth's moon is a lady.

But we haven't treated our moon like the lady she is. We've treated her like a tramp. We drew first blood. Constantly ridiculing her for being filled with moldy green cheese; walking on her, leaving our footprints on her surface like the uncaring slobs we are. Worst of all, mankind celebrated as we violated her with a pole and then declared her our property. And just the other week the Japanese crashed a satellite into her. Why must those people kamikaze everything?

It was only a matter of time before she retaliated against our lunar misogyny. The two-part ABC miniseries IMPACT is about the moon threatening to collide with Earth. Some would call it a disaster flick. Some would call it science fiction. Honestly though, after our abusive behavior, IMPACT is really just THE BURNING BED on a lunar scale.

The greatest meteor shower in many a moon is upon us. But nobody spotted that uninvited guest amongst the meteors. Nobody realized until it was too late. Something slams into the moon with great miniseries title. Our lady in the sky has been struck by a rogue dwarf. White dwarf, brown dwarf, Red Dwarf, Sleepy, Doc, and Verne Troyer: I forget exactly what sort of dwarf it was; I think it was a brown dwarf. For sake of argument, let's just go with brown dwarf already. I believe the explanation is that the force of the miniseries title combined with the density of the miniseries title has knocked the moon out of her orbit into closer proximity to Earth.

I really ought to be able to remember these specifics better since the writers of this miniseries went out of their way to constantly beat us over the head with science speak. It's like the writers were so determined to convince us all of this is scientifically plausible and to do so egghead characters must be in an almost constant state of hypothesizing. If running a computerized simulation equated to foreplay then IMPACT would have looked like CALIGULA by the end of hour one.

Most disaster movies today fall into this constant scientific mumbo jumbo trap, which would be acceptable if these motion pictures were hard science fiction programs and not just silly b-movie disastrophes where bullet trains get airborne while fathers and sons hang upside down clutching swing sets for dear life as global gravity begins to fail. When you have four television hours to fill, endless science talk helps. That and arguing with grandpa about his agoraphobic tendencies or watching German lovebirds declaring their love for one another in church.

You may recall Natasha Henstridge as the horny alien babe from the first two SPECIES movies and most recently from the recently cancelled ABC series “Eli Stone”. What? Never heard of the show “Eli Stone”? A whimsical legal drama with mystical overtones about a conniving lawyer at a prestigious San Francisco law firm who undergoes a crisis of conscience after being diagnosed with a brain tumor and begins experiencing prophetic hallucinations that often involved musical numbers built around George Michael songs. Can't imagine why that show didn't last.

So anyway, Natasha Henstridge has been cast as Dr. Rhodes, the top advisor to the President of the United States when it comes to all things outer spacey. If you can believe that then the moon colliding with Earth no longer seems like that great a stretch.

David James Elliot, the guy from the show "JAG", is another space scientist. I don't remember his character's name so I'll just call him "JAG Guy". That he's a scientist is less important than the fact that he's a recent widower with two precocious kids, one of whom appears to be a neo-pagan or a Daoist or some sort of moon worshipper because the kid is constantly talking about the man in the moon like he's some sort of deity he prays to. Surprised we never saw the kid building a replica of Stonehenge with his Legos.

"Ha ha, guys. The moon is going to collide with Earth in a few weeks and you yahoos are putting my truck in a tree. We have to come up with a solution; there's no time to be playing practical jokes. Grow up, people."

IMPACT is actually a German production. German TV viewers love their b-natural disaster and nature gone amok movies almost as much as the Sci-Fi Channel. Being a German production explains why the European Space Agency plays a bigger role than NASA and two of the dullest main characters we're constantly subjected are a German astrophysicist and his pregnant fiancé in peril. He'll even be the one to make the noble sacrifice at the end of the movie.

Must there always be a noble sacrifice in these films? The worst ever was Bruce Willis having to stay behind to blow up the asteroid in ARMAGEDDON because it was out of range of being remote detonated even though minutes later NASA is able to get a communication signal directly to Bruce Willis all alone on this asteroid so that he can say goodbye to daughter Liv Tyler. That movie sucked. Not all that crazy about this one either.

The moon getting closer to our planet causes gravity to go inconsistently haywire. By inconsistent I mean anytime the writers want gravity to fail for a few minutes to cause some havoc. It's actually sort of a cross between failing gravity and some sort of magnetic reaction that causes metal objects to begin floating up - but only for about a 30-seconds to a minute. There’s no rhyme or reason behind why or when it happens or for how long. Just like how there’s no logic behind how electronic communications are interrupted. Sporadically, and only when most convenient for the script, like when JAG Guy is trying to call his crotchety old grandfather (James Cromwell in full-on James Cromwell mode) watching after his kids to give them safety instructions.

The first time we see the earth’s magnetism go kablooey happens on a Parisian street with outdoor cafes and people on scooters - a typical French scene. As they begin floating in the air it looks less like a sudden loss of gravity as an ominous sign of an impending global cataclysm to come and more like a whimsical piece of European performance art. Fellini would have shot something like this if he was going through a “Wonderful World of Disney” phase.

The best and damn funniest takes place near the outset of part two when Grandpa and the kids attempt to outrace the loss of gravity in an old jalopy; the car floats up into the air still moving in linear fashion surrounded by other floating in mid-air metallic debris like a disaster movie version of CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG. What really makes it a laugh riot are the numerous cutaway shots to James Cromwell and the kids' screaming their heads off like passengers in an old "Toonces, The Cat That Can Drive a Car" Saturday Night Live skit. Someone has got to YouTube this scene.

Wanna bet Cromwel's pants are full of Flubber right now?

Meanwhile, the President of the United States needs a good cry. The actor they cast has the sad-eyed, quivering lips of a grown man moments from blubbering, and this is even before he gets the really bad news at the conclusion of part one. Not just mere crying, mind you. I'm talking the sort of "me-me-me-me" whimpering Beaker from “The Muppet Show” makes when distressed. The second half of IMPACT will see him trying to man up. His Presidential address announcing that the moon will potentially collide with Earth in just over a month, the man gets his "hope can survive" end-of-the-world speech confused with Bill Pullman's ID4 "ra-ra-ra" speech. I think he officially declared war on the moon on behalf of all mankind. This is the same President who early on when Dr. Rhodes first learns that the moon has slipped into a closer orbit, he demands to know the ramifications of this, babbling as to whether we should expect "werewolves in the afternoon". How did this twit get elected?

I prefer Morgan Freeman as my President in times of apocalypse. Just something about Morgan Freeman's voice is so soothing it can make offer a glimmer of hope delivering even the most harrowing news. Morgan Freeman could tell me I have Ebola and that I will die a slow, bloody death as my organs liquefy and still his voice would fill me with a sense that maybe it won't be all bad.

The first time in this whole blasted miniseries where President Pantscrapper comes across as calm and assured in what to do next is when he's coercing JAG Guy and the German scientist to go up into space on a suicide mission, practically smiling as he tells them its their civic duty. I could believe Morgan Freeman talking them into it this, but not this simpering man-child of a President.

I'm still hung up on the "werewolves in the afternoon" line. I fully endorse this idea. IMPACT would have been a million times better if there had been afternoon werewolves added into the mix. Think about it. The moon keeps inching closer to the earth; people are trying to figure out a way to stop it as gravity goes wonky and packs of floating daywolves are on the prowl. Forget about being a German-produced made-for-television miniseries; they could have sold this to Jerry Bruckheimer. Nic Cage would sign on in a heartbeat to star as the world-weary NASA scientist single dad turned reluctant afternoon werewolf hunter trying to save the world from a lunar holocaust. Simon West directs. $400 million worldwide box office guaranteed.

As part one of IMPACT concludes, the German scientist calculates the moon slamming into Earth in just over a month, his pregnant fiancé’s train goes airborne, David James Elliot poses in the NASA command center with his hands partially tucked into his pockets clearly channeling his inner Tom Wopat, and Natasha Henstridge informs President Wussy that now really would be a good time to cry.

"I am so going to Tom Wopat the hell out of this scene."

Part two of IMPACT only serves to remind viewers why there was no need to stretch all this bunk out to four hours. Dr. Rhodes soul patched ex-husband is a reporter who finds out the truth about the moon impact and wants to print the story despite her pleas that it would panic the public. JAG Guy’s children warm the heart of an unfriendly loner they're sharing shelter with after their Fred McMurray experience ends in a crash landing and a gravely injured grandpa. A pregnant German woman crawls out of the wreckage of a flying train wreck unscathed so she can then argue with police over getting transportation back to the city so that she can marry her fiance before he blasts off into space to get blasted. It's filler time!

Grandpa succumbs to cardiac arrest. As the children cry, the heart of the coldhearted loner grows three sizes too large. Christmas in Whoville is saved!

Wait a minute! Watching children cry over the loss of dead loved ones is also what convinced alien Keanu to not exterminate mankind in the remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Are you telling me that awful remake was actually some apocalyptic retelling of HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS in disguise? Whoa!

The military concocts a success-proof plan to nuke the moon back into its orbit against the advice of every scientist on Earth. I liked my plan better: every human being on Earth goes to ground zero; once the moon gets close enough we all get out and push. It could work, but only if you truly believe.

I know you'll be shocked to hear this but the military's plan fails and the moon does not treat us as liberators. Plan B is formulated. It also involves nuking the moon. Don't you all know by now that every single problem in nature can be solved with a simple dash of combustible Oppenheimer.

The new idea fully endorsed by all the scientists that graduated with honors from Michael Bay Institute of Technology is to nuke the brown dwarf out of the moon so that its immense density will cease pushing the moon into our orbit or some crappola like that. It’s like the time I got that popcorn seed lodged in my teeth and nothing I did could get it out until I sucked on that firecracker.

The catch is this plan demands the absolute precision that requires shooting male scientists to the moon. Sorry, Miss Henstridge, you're strictly on concerned monitor-watching duty for the remainder of the movie. Once there, they’ll play with a life-sized version of a battery-operated erector set I owned as a kid. This doohickey even has green and red lights on it to let everyone know when it has and has not been set-up with absolute precision.

Hey, kids! Now you too can recreate all that absolute precision, Earth-saving, moon-nuking excitement with the electronic "IMPACT Lunar Action Playset" - new from Tyco!

Time is running out for mankind. The race is on... To find JAG Guy's kids so he can say goodbye before blasting off. Ugh.

FYI: Giving the children of a man being blasted into space on a mission with only a 1-in-a-1000 chance of returning automatically grants you a good spot in mission control. If he’d managed to save grandpa too they might have even let him play with the knobs.

Ninety-minutes of padding pays off with a cheap homage to ARMAGEDDON that proves surprisingly boring save for a random astronaut next to a deep ravine falling to her death in near zero gravity. The German scientist stays behind to make the noble sacrifice so that JAG Guy and another scientist/astronaut can safely make it home. The pregnant wife appears surprisingly accepting of her new husband’s fate, possibly because of that nice American man on the flying train she got chummy with as he helped her get back to Berlin. Tramp.

JAG Guy looks most unhappy returning to Earth - pissed off unhappy. Not sure why his expression is grimmer now that the world is saved than it was when the end was imminent. I think it just dawned on him that with Grandpa dead he's now out a reliable babysitter, or maybe he just always wanted to be Bruce Willis. He also looked happier hugging Natasha Henstridge than he did his own children.

The explosion sends the brown dwarf rocketing back into the space from which it came and somehow this alone corrects all of the moons problems - save for one biggie. The moon is now irrevocably broken in a rather ugly fashion; a third-sized chunk now resides a bit off to the side. Any future one giant leaps for mankind really will involve a giant leap. But nobody cares. The moon is back to being a thankless bitch.

Not even a single comment about how in one fell swoop the entire werewolf genre, from old country lore to modern popular culture, has officially come to an end. Who mourns for the lycanthropes?

IMPACT ends with everyone looking up at the broken moon-and-a-quarter relieved that a worldwide catastrophe has been averted. But has it? I've seen the moon before in this very state - the opening credits of the 1980's “Thundarr the Barbarian” cartoon. Could it be that this entire miniseries has actually been a “Thundarr” prequel setting the stage for the series of cataclysmic events that would transform out planet into the one seen on “Thundarr the Barbarian”? We may have lost our werewolves, but we will soon gain our Ookla the Mok's.

IN MEMORY OF THE MOON
BIG BANG - 2009

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW