Great Film overall

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

British director Brian Trenchard-Smith has directed some great B-movies in the past including THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, FROG DREAMING, and TURKEY SHOOT, but ARCTIC BLAST is far from one of his best. It's an Australian SyFy Channel disaster movie just as poor as it sounds, and with a script by derivative go-to guy Jason Bourque it's just as near-unwatchable as the rest of SyFy's disaster-themed output.The story sees a hole in the ozone laying sending a freezing wave of arctic air down to the world and destroying everything in its path. As is usual with these offerings, the events start off small scale with a few extras being frozen up before London ends up being destroyed at the climax. The special effects clearly emulate THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW yet they're laughably cheesy, especially when we see characters freezing. The film is the usual mish-mash of pseudo-science and bad acting from the Australian cast members, and even Trenchard-Smith's steady direction can't save it.

As far as low budget, B-grade disaster flicks go this was about what you'd expect. I've seen way worse Sy Fy movies for sure. Decent enough premise (basically borrowed from 'The Day After Tomorrow') and an enjoyable lead in Michael Shanks who even gets a bit of a back story revolving around his teenage daughter and impending divorce.The story jumps around (a lot) between Philadelphia (actually Ottawa) and Hobart Australia (actually Hobart), following a renowned physicist trying to figure out how to stop a sudden climate shift which has opened up a hole in the ozone that threatens to engulf the world in a new Ice Age and wipe out mankind.Of course initially none of the higher up government dudes believe the hero scientist when he tells them that bad things are happening until, well, worse things happen. Taking the form of deadly ice fog (-90deg) killing in seconds and presumably able to chase cars. Airliners also crash, a research vessel runs aground full of soggy dead scientists, there are frozen surfers, general panic and running in the streets. You know all the stuff that makes for an "awesome" B movie.Some of the insta-freeze scenes are unintentionally hilarious, the budget is low so the special effects are all lame and of course none of the science works but I still had a good time with this. I am a fan of the good (bad) disaster flicks though. 12/27/14

OK, maybe it isn't a great picture, but some of the reviews forget this is science fiction, even if the producers don't present it as such. Movies are supposed to be entertaining, and as far as I am concerned, to dissect it for accuracy just detracts for its actual purpose Speaking of purpose, this has an obvious environmental message, which I don't buy, but for the 90 minutes I was entertained, so I'll give it a 7. This one of those movies that doesn't really have a villain but it did try to make one out of Bruce Davison as head of the agency.The acting was OK, the subplot of a divorce really never was an issue, and the special effects were just too repetitive without showing much. The outcome, of course, was predictable--save the world, save the marriage, etc. But still was entertaining.

Yet another time it's embarrassing to admit you're Australian, even if this nightmare did eventuate out of the US. Hey, another reviewer said the Australian accents were either fake or overdone. The tragedy is, all the Aussie characters *were* played by Australian actors. Need I say more??!! I am astonished that so many thought this movie was reasonable enough to fit in the 'mildly entertaining, OK way to waste 90mins' type category. I only saw just over half of it, (& that's only because I had the TV on as background noise) but trust me, you only need about 5mins to get the gist. The only way these incredibly cheesy 'epic' save-the-world disaster movies work is if they have a mega-buck budget spent on some majorly impressive special effects, keep as far away as possible from trying to incorporate any sort of 'real science', don't in any way try to teach us anything, have some larger than life iconic and at least half-decent actors who can pull off the appallingly bad dialogue well enough for us to be charmed into suspending disbelief & letting them take us on the ride.This film has none of those elements. NONEDo not waste your time. Unless someone pays you to watch it. Like, I mean, A LOT of money!! ;)