There have been made-for-television disaster movies with weaker premises than Ice Quake (apparently, there’s some basis in truth for this happening), but that might be it’s only distinguishing feature, which, of course, is actually its biggest liability. There might be no way to prove it, but it’s entirely possible that no one has ever sat down to watch anything on the SyFy channel expecting any level of plausibility or realism. At times, it seems as if Quake tried to be a good movie, which seems like kind of a waste of time.
The only recognizable face here belongs to Victor Garber, who plays a tough-as-nails military man. Those familiar with his work (which has primarily been in musical theater on Broadway) may find this portrayal an even greater stretch of imagination than anything else in here, but it’s perhaps the only thing to make this look or feel like anything other than a Hallmark film. The fact that the main protagonists are of a family stranded on a rapidly fracturing mountain, and the snowy Christmas setting do nothing to help this. It would seem self-defeating to make a disaster movie that looks and feels as if the biggest threat is that someone might not learn the true meaning of Christmas, but here we are.
Presumably, we’re supposed to think that this whole family could be crushed by an avalanche or blasted into oblivion by methane gas (although, come on, really?), but there’s really no way to make either of those as compelling as they could be on a tv budget, and Quake neglects to compensate in the one way basic cable knows how: outright lunacy. Methane earthquakes are well and good, but after a while, the film starts to suffer from the lack of dinosaurs, space bees, or other impossible thing that could be causing these quakes, anything other than an actual natural substance. Ice Quake is by no means a poor example of its subgenre, but it’s not representative of its better insincts, or at least its more entertaining ones.
SPECIAL FEATURES
There's a 'making-of' as well as a trailer.
"Ice Quake" is on sale January 3, 2012 and is not rated. disaster. Directed by Paul Ziller. Written by Paul Ziller, David Ray. Starring Jodelle Ferland, Victor Garber, Brendan Fehr, Holly Elissa Lamaro, Ryan Grantham.
