User reviews

On the brink of disaster, with time running out, the fate of the world rests in the determined hands of a crack military unit, and a scientist with a plan that's risky, but just might save the world.

The soldiers are led by a handsome young colonel, whose daughter has been hijacked by a madman. Thrown in for sexual tension, and a woman's touch, is the scientist's daughter, reknowned in her own right, but with a chip on her shoulder because she thinks her father cared more for science than for her. Rutger Hauer, as the President of the United States, wrings his hands and worries with real flair.

This is strictly formula, the same you've seen in "Deep Impact", "The Core", and "Armagaeddon" (and those are the variations just from the last few years). This is a largely unknown cast, less John Rhys-Davies, Rutger Hauer, and the actor who played "Zale" on TV's M*A*S*H.

The story is stale, but still this is not an awful film; the actors turn in, in my opinion, as good a performance as could be derived from the material. If you're like me, and you're faced with a choice between re-runs of "Full House" and "Scorched" at 2 o'clock in the morning, pick this film. The nuclear annihilation of Los Angeles has got to be more entertaining than those horrible twin girls!

L.A. gets nuked in this Final Solution to the Problem of Traffic and Urban Sprawl in Southern California. Most of the other reviewers of this turkey have given it the pan it deserves, but this is the kind of film that just invites more comments. I grew up in L.A. and left more than 20 years ago, and with every visit back, I grow to hate what it has become more and more. This film was probably thought up by some disgruntled New Yorker who moved out to L.A. and is stuck there and wants revenge. It's a direct-to-video attempt to capitalize on the latest string of planetary catastrophe movies. It may fool you because despite its low budget, it starts out looking like a real movie: Its production values and musical score are actually quite respectable. However, the plot is based on a ridiculous premise and feels like something that was banged out in a 30-second story conference. There is some kind of complication involving nuclear testing that results in a shift of the tectonic plate that runs through Southern California (the plate boundary is the San Andreas Fault). If the plate displacement reaches 44 centimeters, boom! Global catastrophe as the molten mantle spews out and causes a great mass extinction, including all human life. How to stop the plate displacement? Why, a little old 15-megaton nuclear explosion or two right in the middle of the L.A. basin. A seismologist I'm not, but what little I know about plate tectonics tells me that the forces driving the plates are such as to defy any merely human intervention. Why is the film set in L.A.? So that the filmmakers don't have to leave town but can use L.A. locations for the shoot. One laughable premise is followed by another when the feds order the evacuation of Los Angeles, and we're asked to believe that the local and national authorities can 1) actually carry this out, and 2) do it in just a couple of days. Then there is a race against time to place the nukes and detonate them while dealing with stock villains, irrelevant and contrived side-stories about family squabbles, impossible coincidences, and implausible crises.

Let's not ignore the cast, which consists largely of third-rate B-movie regulars who don't exactly light up the screen. Mark Dacascos, who appears to be a cheap imitation Bruce Lee, has little or no screen charisma as the male lead; ditto for Tamara Davies as the female lead: She is beautiful but not much of an actress. Ditto for most of the rest of the case. Two very good foreign-born actors, Rutger Hauer and John Rhys-Davies, are completely wasted in their roles: Hilariously, the Dutchman Hauer plays the U.S. president (!), and Rhys-Davies plays a scientist who is essentially a reprise of the role of Maximillian Arturo that he played in the series 'Sliders.' The excellent and under-appreciated Mark Rolston, who has the misfortune to have been born with a face that invites type-casting as an evil guy, looks so bored and unhappy in his stereotypical role as the evil FBI agent with the hidden agenda that it's actually distracting.

This movie is strictly desperation time for insomniacs. Turn it off, take a sleeping pill and go back to bed.

If you take yourself way too seriously like the last reviewer, then you will probably also take this film way too seriously. It's quick paced action B-movie, with a basic plot and some great casting. Rutger Hauer as President--Excellent!

This is a popcorn movie. A don't think about it movie. It has no budget and an obvious plot, but what more do you want on a Saturday afternoon? When it comes down to it, it's a DISASTER movie, and they are all basically the same. If you don't like this genre, don't watch the movie.

And since the fire in the tunnel was a flash fire, a quick burning flame that passed through the tunnel--surviving in the trunk is possible. The trunk would not have heated up enough to overheat her. and besides it's a movie. Don't take it so seriously and you might enjoy yourself.

Well, This film is lucky (for now) that the voting section is out of action otherwises I would be giving out a 3/10 for this utter nonsense.

The film's basic premise is sound enough. Underground Nuke testing has caused a disturbance in the movements of the continental plates thereby triggering a natural disaster. The Americans (fair enough, there are some major plate boundaries in the states) have to halt this movement before the world burns up with lava flowing from the earth's inner layers.

But the whole thing is so poorly thought out. The acting from the principles is so rubbish (some notable exceptions in the higher quality cast members who are just working on what they have been given). Wooden delivery of corny lines.

Also there seemed to be pointless plot additions to raise the "action" part including an utterly pointless and under-developed love/hate relationship between a father and daughter scientist team. Also - Hollywood - there is absolutely no need to include a romantic attachment between a male and female lead if the whole film is meant to only take place over a couple of days. It is stupid and unnecessary.

There seemed to be some other (again underdeveloped) subplot where another goverment agent (CIA ?? - can't remember - bored by then) hated the hero character - and hated him sooooo much that he was willing to try and kill him and prevent the entire mission from succeeding. Utter tripe. Another pointless plotline with the hero's daughter being lsot in the city and needing rescuing (virtually the only person lost in the city happened to be the hero's daughter). No element of the film left the audience in suspense (the pointless trip near the beginning into the underground system to "check out" a deep ventilation hole, was surprise surprise was needed to save the day in the end.

Also - another thing (starting to rant now). Why on a mission of such importance were only a handful of people sent in to carry (a seemingly very light - he was running with it in a bag under one arm at one point) nuclear weapon into the hot zone, with NO backup, allowing the team to be effectively mugged by some local gang.

Do not see this on video - do not stay up late to watch this on tv. Just avoid - sleeping is a better use of your time.

Wow, is this bad.

The problem with this movie--besides a budget of $11--is that the premise contains no real conflict for the hero to overcome--it just wouldn't be that hard for the US military to detonate a bomb in an evacuated Los Angeles. So the makers start pulling obstacles and conflict out of thin air about halfway through--none of which make a lick of sense.

Characters inexplicably turn bad or suddenly start behaving contrary to everyone's interest, including their own; boogie men pop up out of nowhere for no discernible reason; and of course the hero's daughter improbably needs to be rescued from conveniently nearby. She, by the way, survives a car fire by hiding--get this--in the trunk. Yeah, that would work.

About three-quarters of the way in you realize that the reason the bomb has to be detonated in Los Angeles is that the director needed to shoot this movie across the street from his brother's dry cleaning shop so he wouldn't be late for his shift.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "A-hah! This guy doesn't recognize a spoof when he sees one! Clearly this movie is tongue-in-cheek!"

Wrong--it isn't. It's just really, really bad.

Scorcher is a doomsday film which depicts the end of the world if too many nuclear bombs are tested. In this one, the world's tectonic plates are jarred out of alignment and sets the world on a fiery collision course with the apocalypse. The exhausted end of the world scenario claims the end of the world can only be prevented by an elite group of men trained for just such an emergency. Taxing to watch, an avid movie fan can nearly anticipate what will happen next. Whoever suggested the making of this film, obviously was hampered by a limited budget and restrained by anything novel to include in the script. The actors are subjected to curious scrutiny as to why they accepted their roles. Mark Dacascos easily plays hero, Ryan Beckett. Veteran actor John Rhys-Davies is Dr. Matthew Sallin who is hindered by the traditional over achieving scientist daughter out to prove herself. Rutger Hauer, who usually plays the heavy or hero looks out of place as the President. Finally there's the duplicitous G.W. Bailey as the double-crossing General Timothy Moore. In the final analysis, this film is realized as nothing more than of a poor-man's 'Armaggodon', or 'Core' or Earthquake, etc, etc. You get the picture. *

And more clichés. The whole film is a conglomerate of third rate movie clichés, from the smart Aleck military guy, the two fathers who seem to reject their daughters...from beginning to end Cliché! What's more, it makes no sense. One sample of that summarizes one event after the other: the heroes are in need of emergency departure. There it is: a corporate jet just waiting to pick them up on the streets of a deserted Los Angeles.

And then there's the doomsday scenario with pseudo-scientific jargon to spin the mind...

It's okay if you want to occupy the pre-schoolers...I guess.

This makes Ed Wood look classy.

The negative comments previously posted, to borrow a term, "utter nonsense", are all accurate. My first thought was to write HBO and request a refund for the time I watched it, and for all its other airings which took up time slots from shows that need to be deserving of my paid premium. If the world as we know it ended prior to this film being made, would that be a good thing? It would be futile to investigate if there was one morsel of this film that someone, anybody would find appealing. BUT do no classify this as a BOMB, as it lacks the qualities a bomb requires. This needs to be classified as a "WEEPER"; not in terms of the film evoking emotions of sentiment, but one that makes us weep that the powers that be in the film industry, allowed this movie to be made. It wasn't necessary to check off for any possible "spoiler" comments, as it takes predictable paths with unexplainable detours, check that, unfathomable detours. It's just awful, please stay away.

Riper than a fruit cart in August, Scorcher is like a greatest hits of disaster movie tropes, Hollywood hack hits and Clichéd dialog.

Yes, they are all here. The wise-cracking action hero (except this time his jokes are not funny), the scientist who warns of the approaching doom but nobody will listen, Fingers the wacky sidekick (role would have gone to Paul Giamatti if they had a big budget) the duplicitous double agent who wants to thwart the whole mission, I guess because he read the script and hates the writer so much. I know that I saw the movie and now I hate the director so much. And everyone else involved.

Plenty of clichés to go around here: "Grab my hand!" "You're not dying on my watch!" "Doc, again please, this time in English." "Are you out of your mind?" "Don't F@@@ with me, Cowboy." And that was just the first ten minutes.

So bad that I almost thought this crossed into the realm of spoof. But I think they were actually somewhat serious.

On one minor positive note (pun not intended), as many of the other commenters have stated, the music score is pretty good. Almost fooled me into thinking this movie had a bigger budget.

Great fodder for MST3K style riffers or the masochistic movie fan in your life.

Except the horrible cast, the ridiculous script & the lousy dialogues:

Did the author only read ONE scientistic book about climatic structure, tectonic plates, or just physics?

Never saw a more ridiculous movie.

Better to spend the money for renting to me. :-)

Why is it not possible to vote zero?

No movie in the last years would deserve it more!

AND: Which drugs are necessary to write a script like these? Which people are financing this waste of time?

Worst movie of the last years!

Sure, this zero budget Armaggeddon wannabe isn't breaking the slightest bit of new ground, but they sure do make every buck count. Funny part is, it actually WORKS! in large part to the acting and directing. And thats ONLY if you forget the over the top disaster plot (the Earth's plates are moving and can only be stopped by setting off a nuke in LA) Still, there was an honest attempt at making us care for the people in this story by way of two father/daughter plotlines and the movie has some really exciting action sequences to boot. it was nice to see Mark Dacascos doing something other than kicking ass and actually getting to act. Rutger Hauer adds his usual presence and John Rhys Davies was fun to watch as the scientist with a plan. this is one of those movies where you either go with the plot or don't. Despite the obvious low budget, there were some great visuals and the pacing was well done. Music was also great (very Hans Zimmer-like).

in all, you could do a lot worse from the action aisle of Blockbuster.

Recommend only for those who love B movies that truly aspire to more.

Ah the unmistakable whiff of stock footage! Scorcher is a very cheap film in the style of Armageddon without the excessive cheese though. Despite borrowing footage from films like Daylight, Dantes Peak and Terminator 2 the rest of the film is of a high standard. The idea is good, Shifting plates that are moving to a point that will have the world hotting up to immense proportions with volcanoes exploding, earthquakes and the molten rock from below the earth rising from under the ground when the pacific plate reaches a certain point. The reason this is happening is the constant damage humans do to the earth, with global warming on the rise and potentially set to rise to the point of Armageddon.

The answer is to set off a nuclear bomb to deflect the plate, but this has to be done in Los Angeles, yes far fetched I know but aren't most movies of this type? It is down to an elite group headed by Ryan Beckett, played well by Mark Dacascos, to save the day. With LA in evacuation they have less than two days to complete the mission and what's more is Beckett's daughter is in Los Angeles. His superiors say they will evacuate her but of course things don't go to plan. On her way through a tunnel an earthquake sets off an explosion in the gas pipes destroying everything in the tunnel (que Daylight scenes), Beckett's daughter is saved by his lover at the cost of her life and so His daughter is now alone in a deserted LA. She gets kidnapped by a nutcase and presumed dead, Beckett isn't even told as it may compromise the mission to save the world. Anyway as you'd expect the world is saved but not without complications. Nutters, looters and a military man with a hidden agenda all stand in the way of his mission as well as earth quakes and other natural elements.

The stock footage is very blatant and the film seems very cheap but the sets they have built up are small but good. Rutger Hauer has a bit part as the President, you can always rely on Hauer, he is good here but is about as convincing as an American president as he is as Britney Spears. He is in this simply for the producers to use his name in the same way as the stock footage, to add a touch of class.

In fact a key part of why this film doesn't fall flat, and become a ridiculous film that would normally star Michael Dudikoff and Gary Daniels, is the excellent cast. As I mentioned, Rutger Hauer is good although coasting through his role. He is required to do little more than seems concerned and is never on screen for more than a minute at a time. John Rhys Davies adds some quality to, he shows his experience of being in top class movies like Lord of the Rings and two of the Indiana Jones films and certainly has a decent part as the scientist with the know how. Mark Dacascos as usual is good. He has improved immensely as an actor over the years and can easily do roles with more depth, he is certainly one of the more interesting actors from the action genre. His delivery is good as well being expressive and charismatic, he has definitely got involving eyes like Rutger that draw the audience in and make him very convincing. He has also got the necessary comical timing and can make good come from poor one liners, which is rare to the action world, he is starting to get the one liner panache that the Oak Ah-nuld has had since he first uttered knock-knock in Predator after having kicked through a door. This film was made before Dacascos hit the big time with Brotherhood of the Wolf, the film that went down a storm and for which he received high praise, and now has two very promising films in the pipeline. Both of which are respectably budgeted and will get him more coverage for people to take notice of the fact he is an action star with acting ability. The next Vin Diesel perhaps? who knows. Tamara Davies was good in her role as John Rhys-Davies's daughter (are they related in real life?). I've never seen her work before but she did impress me, also the girl who plays Beckett's daughter was very good, definitely a promising actress but this I feel will not get her noticed.

Anyway this is a half decent film, the action falls flat because they are basing it around stock footage, there are a few more action scenes which don't need stock footage but they are nothing special and rather cheap. This is really half cheap B-movie and half professional A movie. The acting is certainly good, Hauer is needless but watchable. This will definitely disappoint fans who expect Mark to unleash some Kung-fu upon the bad guys because he doesn't, but this is not that sort of movie. It is better than some of the ham fisted epics Hollywood have released upon us in recent years. It is just a question of why allow a film to be made if the directors and writers visions far out weigh the money the producers are willing to give. This is watchable and is an example of pointless and forgettable movie making. This is similar in its blatant ripping off as Epicentre with Gary Daniels, another disaster flick that's best sequences were ripped off from other movies, this film however has class where it matters, in the acting and direction, there are some nice scenes in the movie. For Dacascos fans it is worth the purchase if only to see an accomplished performance, Drive this is not but his next two will satisfy our kung-fu cravings. This may be worth a rental to anyone else, it depends on how you are effected by the use of stock footage. It shouldn't really mar the quality of the remainder of the film but it does somewhat.

Overall 5.5/10 half good in respect of the acting, music and direction and half bad for the ripping off, cheapness and slightly lame ending.

The plot lines in this movie are so bad, one would think this is a spoof. The redeeming factor is that the acting is just as bad so it really turns it into a comedy.

let me give you three examples.

First, Here is a critical mission to deliver 2 nuclear weapons to a site in LA, and it is "protected" by a small team in 1 truck and two jeeps. no backup, no eye-in-the-sky, no secondary communications, nothing. At one point they get stopped by the old "truck in the middle of the road" trick. They all get out and stand around when they are opened up on. These are elite soldiers on a critical mission to save the world? and they are stymied by a rogue team of bandits. And of course along for the ride is the cute scientist wearing stylish slacks and a cute sweater.

Second, there is a father/daughter team of scientists. She hates him because he was not around. And he speaks glowingly of her and her work - to the point that it is revealed that he funded her research. But several times during the movie when she disagrees with him on scientific findings, he completely dismisses and insults her. Then the plot tries to turn the moment when we sees she is right into a tear jerking scene of father/daughter love. It's a complete failure.

Third, one character hates the lead character so much that he continually jeopardizes the mission to save the world in order to make this one guy look bad.

Fourth, two characters take off in a jeep with the second nuke needed to save the world in search of the main characters daughter. They didn't think of leaving it with the main team when they left? Oh, that's right, it was needed to add a little more drama in the plot.

Fifth, when arming the nuclear weapon, the main character tells his daughter "you better step back." He's setting an arming device on a nuclear weapon and has her move 5 feet back? Oh, I see, that was needed for the bad guy to be able to grab her when he wasn't looking.

I guess that was 5 things. I could have gone on even longer, but I think you get the point.

Sappy speeches, bad character acting, typical inept politicians who can't make the right decisions and take all the credit when things go right, and a crazy serial killer in the mix who liked to threatens to burn a young woman but never seems to get around to actually doing anything.

The only suspense in the movie was what next stupid turn was the plot going to take. I have to admit, I was surprised at times - because the turns were so unbelievable and dumb.

The plot: the earth's tectonic plates are all screwed up, and a colonel has to place a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles to set the plates back the right direction. Other than the obvious fact it was inspired by "Armageddon", the plot has potential.

But there's theory and there's practice. And the actual movie is really messed up. There's a pause every five minutes for a speech about fathers abandoning daughters. There's a military man who wants to stop them, although the motive is really fuzzy. There's a romance that is never carried out. The fate of the 8 million or so LA residents is never mentioned. Basically, this film is full of subplots not fully explored and then ends very abruptly. It was like a novel ending mid-sentence (not unlike Douglas Adams' "Salmon of Doubt").

There were some good parts. The teenage girl, played by Raine Marcus, was a great choice. Beauty, brains, strong driving character. And she runs into a very unexpected turn of events when trying to escape from LA (if only Kurt Russell had been there). And John Rys-Davies is in this film, so that's good. I think maybe there was a line or two of dialogue I liked, if that counts.

So, yeah. Unfinished plots. A ripoff of Armageddon. Too much moralizing about the wrong things. And one big non-stop advertisement for the Blackberry (that Palm Pilot thing). Remember kids, carry a Blackberry on you at all times just in case you're knocked unconscious and kidnapped by a deformed serial killer with a love for fanatic Bible-thumpers! This film, obviously, is not recommended.

Don't waste your time on this boring movie. You would be better entertained watching TV commercials. The actors performances are jerky, forced, totally unbelievable. Special effects rate a zero. Sci Fi factor is zero. Ditto on action sequences. No decent humor. Plot, kind of. What value does this movie have? I can't find any. I'm taking this time to spare you a wasted time. Following is a repeat of above text because I've already said it all, but IMDb rules require 10 lines of text before a review can be submitted: Don't waste your time on this boring movie. You would be better entertained watching TV commercials. The actors performances are jerky, forced, totally unbelievable. Special effects rate a zero. Sci Fi factor is zero. Ditto on action sequences. No decent humor. Plot, kind of. What value does this movie have? I can't find any. I'm taking this time to spare you a wasted time.

I happened to tune into this one just as it was beginning, mainly because the log line seemed interesting. The opening scene seemed interesting enough with the obviously processed shot of the inferno in the arctic, but as opening credits started to roll I found myself wanting to watch this movie as an example of how not to make a movie. As a filmmaker, I find watching bad stuff like this to be a learning experience of what not to do in a movie.

I found it amazing that a movie like this can be made. It had relatively good production value, considering the bad script, which is why I was confused as to how this movie got made. The writing is not layered with well-developed characters; instead, it is layered with one cliché after another. There is no truth to any of the acting or the characters at all, and it seems like no research was done in order to make this a more believable story, or at least to suspend disbelief, which would have helped make more believable characters. The acting was so mechanical and cliché.

The director is obviously to blame for the bad performances, but I have to admit that the bad script would have made it hard for any director to do a good job on this one. The actors need to take some responsibility as well. I can't imagine any self-respecting talent not weighing in on how to make this story better, but then how could anyone have saved this cinematic disaster. It was so poorly written that the only way this movie could have been made worth watching is to simply rewrite it - completely. It should have never been made. This is not art. It's not even commercial. It seemed like the movie was made for its own sake, and the money spent on this one was spent for the sake of producers wanting to simply make a movie. I don't know – maybe write it off, or to take advantage of some tax break. It's hard to imagine anyone buying or renting a DVD of this, much less HBO picking it up. I guess the producers are making money on this one, since it did air on HBO. Unbelievable!!!

This movie is one of the best YAAS movies I have seen recently. - Good actors, great effects, even music is great and everything is full of action. It keeps watchers focused on USA flag all the time. Sure, like as always USA saves the world from catastrophe. - God save us all.

Half the actors mailed in their performance, the other half couldn't act. Cheesy beyond belief. Horrible plot. The relationships between the characters aren't fully developed or explained. Don't even let me get started on the complete lack of any real scientific reality. I know it is a B-Movie, but at least make it plausible.

Rutger proves yet again that he is if anything, utterly incapable of picking a real role. He must have been lucky with Blade Runner. He totally mails in this one. Guess he was looking for a paycheck.

It was so bad I just had to sit through it for the sheer joy of seeing ineptness in action. If you like to see really really bad movies... this one is for you.

This movie should be viewed by all who value hilariously bad movies. If you loved Plan Nine From Outer Space you will be happy to know that the genre still lives on, albeit only on late night HBO. Get out your VCRs and record one for posterity. This film rates a solid four skunks.

This movie is an entirely forgettable low-budget production.

It's got dumb writing and obnoxious contrived characters and situations serving only as random obstacles to a paperthin 'plot' having to do with some world-threatening geological disorder, which, according to the Scientists, can be fixed only by nuking the city of Los Angeles. That's it! That's the whole movie: The President (Rutger Hauer) says go for it, so they go nuke L.A. Kaboom, The End. Except for those obstacles along the way, which are : 1) Traffic. They don't just fly the damn bomb in on a helicopter, they DRIVE IT from the airport. While the city is being EVACUATED. 2) Then there's Some Annoying Guy with a blowtorch, who wants to set fire to Some Chick, who is the daughter of the special forces Colonel assigned to nuking L.A.; she gets out of her mess by using some gratuitously product-placed pager to page (oh no sorry : INSTANT MESSAGE) Daddy. This pointless subplot grates on forever, but even that didn't quite manage to pad the movie to the intended length of 95 minutes, so they throw in obstacle number 3: Some Other Annoying Guy who annoys everyone for another 15 minutes or so, at which point the good guys blows up L.A along with the annoying guy and everybody's happy. Unbelievable piece of trash.

Oh, if you have to watch this, be sure to look for all the lifted pieces of footage from other films and the last L.A. riots. The cheapo F/X are pretty fun too.

I must also add my glowing praise of the guy who played Styles. That guy was so funny and memorable. I enjoyed the movie but, I really feel the main reason I enjoyed the movie was because of Styles (I believe the actor's name was Jeffrey Johnson). He made the film. I await much more from this talented actor!! I enjoyed the job done by the actress in one of the lead roles. I was just disappointed that there was no more love triangle between Descanso, the actress (sorry I don't know her name) and Styles. That would have been great. It appeared they had great chemistry. Is their someplace I can see more of his work? I watched this movie with my wife and she was very smitten with Mr. Johnson!

A disaster movie as if created by a stencil. You get the same plot as you got used to in all the past years and the only thing that changes is the form of disaster threatening earth. Volcano? No. Ice? No. Meteorites? No. Tectonic plates? Tectonic plates it is! Given the cast of this movie I was expecting a bit more, especially with John Rhys-Davies being in it (and not to forget Rutger Hauer - it feels like ages ago since I last saw him in a movie) and the actors are trying hard to present the script in an acceptable way. Unfortunately the writing is so generic, that Scorcher ends up as just a below average movie in the genre. I did not care for what happens to any of the characters at all. Especially not the two leading characters. The best thing about this movie was the epic soundtrack and I'll add an extra point just because of that.