ThiefHott Too much of everything

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Andy Carrasco (pranakhan) I have to admit that this movie had me hooked. It's excellent sci-fi, with smart character development, some witty dialog, and several interrelated parallel plot points. It has everything from a mysterious alien device to international and political intrigue. The movie even works with complex questions a bit, including science vs. religion.Overall the movie is very well written! A lot of the characters were quite compelling and they each seemed to handle the extremely bizarre situations they were in with completely logical and rational behaviors. I was very impressed.What I don't understand however, is why this movie simply fell completely apart in the end. In the final 30 minutes of the film, its as if the film makers suddenly became bored with the project and decided to simply rush to complete it so they could quickly move on to the next one. All the thought and care that went into making the first 80% of the film was completely and utterly destroyed in the end! Warning, spoilers below! The thing I noticed was the editing suddenly became choppy with noticeable continuity errors. Some of these continuity errors were extremely amateurish and easily spotted. For example, the countdown on the nuclear weapon was jumping by 20 seconds forward and backward as the camera shots changed. I think any director who knows what they are doing should know that when you put a ticking time-bomb on the screen and present it as a major lead to the climax that your viewers will be paying close attention to the countdown sequence. I mean, jeez, its a critical component of the climax! Second, the special effects were very carefully produced and not too bad for a movie on this budget, but near the end it became obvious that the producers wanted to save money or beat a deadline by bypassing a few steps in the compositing and lighting departments. Everything went from pretty believable to obviously CGI with extremely plastic looking textures and poor green screen matting! Even those problems are forgivable if you end the movie by tying up all the loose ends in the plot you so carefully introduced in the first 80% of the film. Most viewers would then shrug off the editing and effects issues as the producers cutting some costs without effecting the story, but when you simply drop the loose ends without tying them up your viewers are left feeling cheated and abandoned.After all the good they had built up and all the great impressions I had during the first 80% of the film, when the credits rolled I was left wondering what $#!@ happened! I am not a stupid person, in fact, I am highly technical and educated, and I am certainly not new to the world of cinema, but I was left totally confused by several things like: 1. If the Torus was completely destroyed absorbing the force of the nuclear blast, then obviously the mechanisms supporting the generation of the cloud cover were also destroyed, forcing an early end to the Torus's plans. If thats so, then why was it explained as being a conscious decision by the Torus? During the Engineers final presentation four months later, an audience member asked, "Why did the Torus stop terraforming the Earth after it disappeared?" And I thought, "Becuase it was completely !@#%#$ destroyed by a nuclear weapon, dummy!" But no, that wasn't the explanation at all?! 2. What ever happened between China and the US? I would think that China would deem the refusal of rights to co-study the Torus, the shooting of one of its top scientists in the heart, being given a whole 24 minutes notice that it better move its troops back, and finally the detonation of a tactical nuclear weapon within 100km of its borders without at least consulting it first would REALLY tick it off! I mean, jeez, if someone did that to us Americans it would be considered a total act of war and we'd have 250,000 Marines marching across their borders while we saturation bombed the $#!@#$ out of it within 48 hours! So... what ever HAPPENED?!?!? 3. What the hell happened to Captain Tower? I mean, he held a senior officer against orders by pointing a gun at his forehead at point-blank range! I'm no expert, but dude, I think our government would consider that a pretty serious offense and charge him with insubordination, treason, rape, and child molestation... wouldn't you? SOOOOO, what the heck HAAAAPEEENED?!?!? 4. OK so.. the pretty, super-intelligent, and tough female researcher somehow became impregnated while inside the Torus. Obviously, there wasn't time for anyone to be bumping' uglies while the thing prepared to wipe out all life, so how did that happened? OK, lets assume it was the Torus who planted the fetus inside there somehow... OK, so why did she thank the engineer at the end? Plus, why did she even look him up in the first place? "I'm pregnant with a possibly freakish alien life-form... wanna be the Daddy?" That simply HAD to be a tacked on "feel good" ending! I have like 40 other questions but I'm too frustrated and tired to mention them, but I am sure you get the point! Epoch is a perfect science fiction film, with excellent scripting, decent special effects, and a compelling story, and it lasts that way for the first three-quarters of the film, at which point it dies a horrible public death in a swarm of mediocrity and careless film making.Not a terrible movie to rent, but if you have other choices, I'd recommend trying them first... unless you happen to like sitting on your couch, drooling on yourself while you stare at the credits like a befuddled brain-damaged monkey wondering what the heck just happened.

Vampenguin I picked this up today as part of a 2/$5 deal, so needless to say I wasn't expecting much. To be honest it didn't exactly deliver a whole lot, but it was certainly better than I was expecting. Takes a long while for the plot to get up ad running, the first 25 minutes or so of the film drag on terribly. This time does serve to introduce the characters, though only one of them is really worth introducing. David Keith's character, Mason Rand, was a decent character who had some very funny lines, but the rest were forgettable and bland. The film picks up as we learn more and more about Torus, the mysterious object that rose from the ground. The CGI effects looked about as good as can be expected, which is a kinder way of saying they sucked. I guess that's a bit harsh, but the majority of the CGI looked very, very cheap. The only exception being the...er...beings in the Torus. Though it ended fairly abruptly, I think the ending was the best part of the film. Leaves you thinking, and I know that I'll be thinking about it well into next week. Overall this is better than a lot of modern day "B" grade sci-fi, but still isn't that great. Worth picking up if it's cheap.6/10

uscmd I have to agree with the wizard. i'm stuck at home on a Saturday with the flu, and luckily I have every channel Direct TV offers, so there's a lot to choose from.This is a very decent, made for TV sci-fi movie. Complete with philosophical issues, a few plot twists...e.g., 80% of the way through the movie, you don't know if the 'thing' is good or bad.The actors are mostly B and C level players. But the script, and their performance allows one to become absorbed in the storyline. As opposed to many, that are just so plain horrible.......immersion into the story is impossible.I can name 10 movies that have been released in this calender year, ones I've paid 9.00 to see in theater, that I feel are less worthy of 2 hours of my life.I'd classify this, as definitely worth watching for free....if its on TV. Not worth going to see at the theater. Not worth making a special trip to blockbuster, but worth tucking away in the back of your mind for one of those nights when everything else is checked out.I give it a 5.Doc

Paul J. Furio (StaticEngine) Ahh, the critics who are so quick to dismiss this made for TV movie often make me wonder what they're really looking for.I picked this movie off the shelf of Blockbuster thinking "hey, unknown Sci-Fi movie, must be awful, but I bet there's some sample material for me in it." What a shock when I got it home and found it was actually clever and worth watching!To begin with, the script is actually pretty smart, and filled with surprisingly witty dialog that had me laughing out loud at parts. The CGI effects are as good as they get for a movie of this budget, and are better than I expected them to be. The story, while mildly predictable, keeps you thinking, and is certainly of a bigger scope than the standard "five people trapped in a unknown alien artifact" that I expected. Any story that acknowledges politics and an outside world has to be given more credit than some viewers (and commenters here) would care to admit.Overall, if you've got a rainy day and are looking for a little diamond in the rough, this isn't a bad way to spend two hours. There are faces you'll recognize, some intelligent unfolding of the story, reasonable cinematography and direction, and Epoch is an overall entertaining bit of work. 7.5 out of 10.