Zodiac - Signs Of The Apocalypse (2014)

This movie reminded me a bit of The Vortex (2012), but better. It had that professor from Back To The Future! It had a clever plot, it had decent actors, it just ruined it all with crappy special effects.

One thing I've learned so far in my quest in search for the movie of movies, is that if you don't have the budget for perfect CGI: don't use it. There's nothing that ruins a good movie as much as special effects done wrong, or not right enough... even if it's almost right and actually looks pretty cool but just doesn't cut it... it just doesn't cut it. It's over.

I wish more directors would take the HK approach to make things look as real as they can be: do things for real. Fireworks. Sand. Dust. Right in front of the camera. A cut before a knife's thrown, one more cut when it's just been wedged in a wall. The arts of false authenticity have been passed down for decades, so why not use that rather than a full replacement? A firework exists, it leaves a dent, it looks more like actual gunfire than gunfire that doesn't exist, and is just made to look as if it exists. Tricks of the trade is like using a wig instead of hair. CGI is like using paint.

Anyway, as for the plot: doomsday's approaching, and it's revealed that each of the zodiacs is actually a symbol for a certain natural disaster. The knowledge has been passed down since ancient times, but somewhere along that timeline it was lost, and now the pieces of the puzzle reside in a cave. There's a rock. There's a machine. There's government agents and scientists and conspiracy theorists, and a small group's venture to defy the odds and save the world. It was OK, but... those special effects...

 rated 3/5: not bad