Disaster in the Bay
As the people of San Francisco prepare to watch a once in the life time meteor shower in the night sky things take a turn for the worse as it turns into a meteor storm with them plummeting down into the Bay area causing death, destruction and mayhem. With the military scrambling to try and deal with the escalating situation, astronomer, Michelle Young (Kari Matchett - The National Tree) and her estranged husband, Tom (Michael Trucco - Perfect Romance), part of the Bay's disaster management team, are drawn in to help try and evacuate the Bay area whilst working out what is going on. But Tom and Michelle have their own worries as their children and Michelle's sister are in the Bay area somewhere.
There comes a time when you have watched so many made for TV disaster movies that you can't tell if you have watched one before or not. That was the feeling I got when I sat down to watch "Meteor Storm" because everything about this disaster movie felt completely generic. It turns out I hadn't watched it before but having now watched it I won't be watching "Meteor Storm" again as even for a made for TV disaster movie it is poor.
The simplest way to describe "Meteor Storm" is to say, have you ever watched a made for TV disaster movie before because if you have what you get here will be exactly the same. It really is that generic and follows the disaster movie formula to the letter as we initially meet various people from Tom and Michelle to news team Kyle and Leena, we learn of the impending disaster and then somehow whilst there is death and destruction the major disaster is averted. There is nothing in "Meteor Storm" to make it feel any different to those other made for TV disaster movies and so the whole idea of a meteor storm hitting San Francisco is basically a different skin on old bones with plenty of typical action and a happy ending for estranged couple Tom and Michelle.
But the thing about "Meteor Storm" is that it is a made for TV movie and that means budget and time constraints which also means at times things are not just a bit laughable but flipping hilarious. The most noticeable of these are of course the special effects which are as false looking as any you will have seen and to be honest there is not a huge amount of them. But we also have an inconsistent storyline where people do things which really don't make sense such as Tom and Michelle's kids leaving the safety of the emergency control centre to try and find a friend. Add in some cheesy dialogue plus wild ideas and it is bad but none more so when we come up with the avert disaster scenario as Michelle works out a way to save the Bay.
The shame of all this is that "Meteor Storm" has some reasonable talent in the cast. Both Kari Matchett as Michelle and Lara Gilchrist as camerawoman Lena have been impressive in other movies whilst Eric Johnson as reporter Kyle can certainly do more than what he gets here. But typically the characters are TV disaster movie poor and so these actors end up trying to make the impossible possible by making these poorly written characters believable but unsurprisingly failing.
What this all boils down to is "Meteor Storm" is not good and that is when comparing it to other made for TV disaster movies. It's not completely terrible but then if it was it may have been a good thing because as it is "Meteor Storm" is 90 minutes of your life you won't get back and you won't feel entertained having watched it.
