“Some people call it a hideout. I call it… Suzanne”
Professor Neil Martin (Joel Gretsch)is an archaeologist. After his divorce he stopped doing field work and stayed home to raise his son Colin (Reilly Dolman). His son is now 20 and wants him out of the house. Colin talks Neil into taking an assignment for Kathryn Keen (Emily Holmes) of Poly Dynamics. Poly Dynamics is a research company dedicated to finding solutions to global issues. He would be taking over the reins from Professor Robert Bowles who passed away. The assignment takes him, Colin and Kathryn to Peru.
A tablet with glyphs has been unearthed in Peru. Inside it they find a sacred stone that is believed to be responsible for setting off a series of cataclysmic events that are based on the zodiac. A doomsday machine of sorts. Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Meteors, Ball lightning etc. At least that’s Neil's theory. The government, of course, dismisses him but they still want the stone since they believe there is great power in it. The government believes they may be able to use the stone as a power source. The DOD are involved. To me that means weapon.
**There may be some spoilers here.
The scientist and his son are trying to escape the government people when they meet Marty. Marty is a doomsday guy living in a bomb shelter. And he’s funny as hell. It is when they look at Marty’s documentation of the world’s cataclysmic events that they realize the doomsday machine has already started and they need to find a way to stop it. It appears the machine started based on an ancient belief that a 10th planet is returning to the solar system after its extremely long orbit around the sun. The builders of the machine believed that when this planet returns to the vicinity of earth it would trigger all the events happening now and would result in the destruction of the earth**
I’ve watched a lot of SYFY channel movies. This one was actually pretty good. When you consider that it is a made for TV “B” movie it has lots of things going for it. The doomsday idea, though not new, is presented in an interesting way. The use of the zodiac instead of the more modern Mayan doomsday theory is refreshing. A form of astrology was practiced in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia around 1950-1651 BCE. Chinese astrology in the Zhou dynasty around 1046-256 BCE. Others were after that such as Hellenistic, Babylonian and Egyptian influences. This means the zodiac, which is the basis of astrology, came about centuries before the Mayans were even around.
The action is non-stop. The special effects are well done. The acting is good. The dialogue may be a little hard to follow since there are so many pieces that need to fit together in the plot and it takes awhile to gather them throughout the movie. If you don’t care how cohesive your doomsday movies are you can just let it wash over you and enjoy the explosions and general mayhem.