DEVINATION
"What the heck is going on?" Uh dude, the end of civilization is near as the ground gradually sinks from beneath your feet. Time to contact mass communication even though they might be lying dormant somewhere.
Anyway, 2011's Doomsday Prophecy is more than just some early 2000s disaster fodder, some Roland Emmerich breadth of view, or some popcorn, disaster movie blockbuster starring Bruce Willis. Yup, "Doomsday" is a thriller with brains, scatter brains for better or worse. You have a scientist and an archaeologist, racing against time to save the world from destruction via earthquakes and other nasty, mother nature shenanigans. They're wanted for murder, they're on the lam, they possess some neoteric rod, and the Feds are um, doing them dirty. "So you're telling me you can see the future now?" Oh yeah, might want to reassess those shades y'all.
Starring the likes of Jewel Staite, Alan Dale, and AJ Buckley and feeling like a product of distributor Syfy (I was right again), "Doomsday" is military and standoffish, the type of flick where it's the doctors vs the Army and/or the government vs the denizens. Director Jason Bourque, well he builds tension inch by inch, providing clips of earthy ruination in bits and bobs that intercut with moments of radical precognition. Sure Doomsday Prophecy is a TV movie but hey, so was Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac and well, that turned out okay. I mean I dug it.
Some airbrushed special effects here, a car chase there, some moments of sci-fi mumbo jumbo almost everywhere, Doomsday Prophecy still has a level of poignancy, a level of revelatory cursory. I mean when other TV pics would rather have you lather in the almighty cheese factor, "Doomsday" makes defined Armageddon feel like the thinking person's, think piece Day of Judgement. Un-false "prophet".
Written by Jesse Burleson