Many films which purport to be Science Fiction are, in reality, Science Fantasy. I have studied Science for most of my long life and taught it for many years in High School. Science Fiction may extrapolate the current laws of Science into hypothetical situations but must not directly contradict the current laws of Science at the time of writing: It is impossible for an object to exceed the speed of light as in the warp speeds of the Star Trek series; If time travel were possible, then one could go back in time and kill an ancestor, from which it follows that one would never have been born, which is known to be false: Reductio ad absurdum; so much for the Back To The Future and the Terminator series etc.It has actually been postulated that global warming could cause another Ice Age, at least in the northern hemisphere, by raising the sea level and thereby interfering with the Gulf Stream, which brings warmth to the north.Many of the reviewers of Arctic Blast complained that the Science was bad. Many occurrences were very far-fetched but none of what I saw broke any actual rules of Science. I noticed several but accepted them as useful plot developments. It was a gripping Science Fantasy with a good warning message about Mankind's disruption of the environment. I was drawn to it because it starred Michael Shanks. The acting was good and the characters were believable. My wife and I both enjoyed it.

As far as low budget, B-grade disaster flicks go this was about what you'd expect. I've seen way worse Sy Fy movies for sure. Decent enough premise (basically borrowed from 'The Day After Tomorrow') and an enjoyable lead in Michael Shanks who even gets a bit of a back story revolving around his teenage daughter and impending divorce.The story jumps around (a lot) between Philadelphia (actually Ottawa) and Hobart Australia (actually Hobart), following a renowned physicist trying to figure out how to stop a sudden climate shift which has opened up a hole in the ozone that threatens to engulf the world in a new Ice Age and wipe out mankind.Of course initially none of the higher up government dudes believe the hero scientist when he tells them that bad things are happening until, well, worse things happen. Taking the form of deadly ice fog (-90deg) killing in seconds and presumably able to chase cars. Airliners also crash, a research vessel runs aground full of soggy dead scientists, there are frozen surfers, general panic and running in the streets. You know all the stuff that makes for an "awesome" B movie.Some of the insta-freeze scenes are unintentionally hilarious, the budget is low so the special effects are all lame and of course none of the science works but I still had a good time with this. I am a fan of the good (bad) disaster flicks though. 12/27/14

...with neither a bang nor a whimper but another dreadful film. This is the standard apocalyptic plot, done so many times with minor variations. The world is threatened by a rogue asteroid/alien invasion/epidemic/biblical flood/change in orbit --- in this case a cold front (really!!!)--- maverick young scientist takes on the establishment --- solves the problem, saves the world --- and they all live happily ever after so humankind can make yet more dreadful movies about averting the end of the world so that humankind can make even more dreadful movies about the end of the world... It never ends. There also are a couple of standard clichéd sub plots --- a floundering marriage, a rebellious teen ager and a death defying mission to retrieve needed insulin. The movie is refreshing in one way. It was a reassuring change to watch Australian trash rather than the American variety. (Although the movie was done in Australia, it was partially funded by the Quebec film fund.Go figure! Yet among the many jumped up stock footage scenes of Rio, Philadelphia, San Francisco, London and Paris being engulfed by ice and cold, there was no Montreal scene. Hell, Montreal is regularly engulfed by ice and cold. You don't need special effects!

I found this movie to be very similar to the movies Absolute Zero and The Day After Tomorrow. All three movies have a sudden deep freeze as the main theme. Of course you have the lone scientist who goes against the theories of the main stream scientists and gets ostracized for it. Then of course it turns out that he is the only one who is right and all the others are wrong. They screw things up more by trying to fix it with the wrong approach and in the end it is up to our outsider scientist hero to save the world. And of course you have to have the scientist be a dad who has to go rescue his kid. It's really nothing new, it's the same old story, just told in a slightly different way. An OK movie to watch, but too predictable.