Today’s quick review: Earthfall. When a rogue planet passes through the Solar System, it knocks the Earth out of its orbit, triggering cataclysmic storms and showering the planet with debris. Steve (Joe Lando), an author and family man, escapes from Los Angeles with his friend Vince (Andrew Elvis Miller) and sets out to find his wife Nancy (Michelle Stafford), an executive at a natural gas company, and their daughter Rachel (Denys Tontz).
Earthfall is a budget sci-fi disaster movie about the end of the world. Separated at the time of the incident, a father, a mother, and a daughter face different challenges as they try to find each other and get to safety. Earthfall makes a couple of smart moves with its plot and characters, but it ultimately succumbs to the same execution problems as its fellow budget flicks. The result is a weak movie with limited appeal.
Earthfall scores points that other budget titles do not. The characters have clear motivations and personalities, and they have enough challenges to keep them busy. The story is serviceable. The three perspectives of Steve, Nancy, and Rachel give the movie a bit of variety, while rumors of a safe haven are enough to keep the plot moving. Finally, Earthfall does a decent job of not biting off more than it can chew.
Unfortunately, Earthfall only rises to the level of competence. The premise of the movie is still generic, the characters are understandable but not particularly interesting, and the movie does a poor job of tracking where its characters should be and what they should be dealing with at a given point in time. The special effects are also a mixed bag, working well for some scenes but breaking down when the movie tries to scale them up.
Earthfall makes an honest effort, and while it manages to avoid some of the pitfalls of the budget sci-fi genre, it has very little to make it stand out. Fans of the genre will be able to appreciate its strengths, but the movie remains badly outclassed by both big-budget disaster movies and budget sci-fi movies that are more clever with their resources. Most viewers will want to steer clear.
For a big-budget disaster movie in the same vein, try Geostorm, Greenland, Deep Impact, 2012, or The Day After Tomorrow.
[2.9 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3630556/). I give it a 4.0 for competent storytelling that doesn’t amount to much in the end.