Planetquake

When I sat down to watch the 2024 movie "Planetquake", I had never heard about it. And I figured that chances were high that this would be a movie from none other than The Asylum. And true enough, it is The Asylum that was behind this movie. And with that fact, I have to admit that I didn't really harbor much of any grand expectations to the movie. But I still opted to watch it, and give writer and director Monroe Robertson the benefit of the doubt.

Truth be told, then every now and again The Asylum do spew out movies that actually are worthwhile watching.

The storyline from writer and director Monroe Robertson is pretty straightforward, playing on every single generic trope of the natural disaster genre. So, while he was playing it safe, you know what you are in for here, for better or worse. It did, however, make for a somewhat generic viewing experience, as there wasn't anything thrilling or new brought to the genre of natural disaster movies.

The acting performances in "Planetquake" were actually fair, taking into consideration the premise of the script and storyline. There were a couple of familiar faces on the cast list, with the likes of Michael Paré, Erica Duke and Phillip Andre Botello. Yep, I've seen enough dubious low budget movies to be familiar with Erica Duke and Phillip Andre Botello.

20 minutes into the movie, Dr. Milly Anderson (played by Erica Duke) said, and I kid you not, "How can we slow the tectonic plates?" The premise of that sentence is just so ludicrous. And that is pretty much the epitome of the writing skills here.

The effects in "Planetquake" are all over the place. Some of the effects are downright of questionable and laughable, and you don't really buy into the disastrous events that takes place, because the effects are so wooden and rigid. But other effects actually look good and somewhat realistic enough, which makes this movie somewhat of a jumble of emotions because of the effects. And I love how localized some of the earthquakes are, totally annihilating one building but not a scratch on the adjacent buildings.

The intentions to make a grand scale disaster movie was definitely there, I will give writer and director Monroe Robertson that much. Just how well it was accomplished on the screen, well that is a whole other story.

Ultimately, then "Planetquake" turned out as I expected it to, for better or worse. I will just chalk it up as yet another run-of-the-mill movie from The Asylum watched and notched off of the list.

My rating of "Planetquake" lands on a generous four out of ten stars, as it is not the worst of dumpster fires to be spewed out by The Asylum.