MELTDOWN: DAYS OF DESTRUCTION, a would-be TV disaster movie from 2006, is only worth watching if you're wondering what happened to Casper Van Dien's career after STARSHIP TROOPERS (answer: not a lot). It's essentially a heatwave-based thriller, featuring some science guff about an asteroid passing close to the Earth causing our planet to move closer to the sun.What it all boils down to is a kind of road/post-apocalypse movie, as Van Dien and his colleagues/friends and family are forced to try to get to a place of safety while contending with intense temperatures. Strangely, despite the supposed heatwave, most of the characters continue to wear long shirts and/or jackets - at least the cult '60s flick NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT made the effort of making the protagonists look all sweaty and dishevelled! Given the poverty-row budget, most of the threat comes from various looters and bad guys, and it's all done in a gung ho fashion and fairly well paced. But the writing is predictable and the characters non-existent, with none of the cast making much of an impact. About the only scene in the film I enjoyed was the bit with the exploding cars, which was novel; the rest is merely humdrum.

From the opening sequence I thought I had MELTDOWN nailed as a cross genre film which mixes DEEP IMPACT with a cop thriller . This seemed a strange idea , but that's not how the plot unravels . Apparently the near miss with the asteroid causes the Earth to spin off its axis which leads to the world's temperature rising , rising and rising . So we've got a plot featuring something similar to the novels of Wyndham and John Christopher where a group of people have to find sanctuary or else they'll join most of the world's population in dying a slow terrible death I can't say MELTDOWN is a great apocalypse movie but since it's a direct to video/DVD film therefore lacking a big budget it's a relatively good meaningless time waster . My only real problem is a line of dialogue spouted by the scientist character in the sewer which happens half way the running time which will you leave you gasping " oh dear I think they've given away the ending ! "

Poor Casper Van Dien, his career has slid a long way from Tarzan and Starship Troopers.In Meltdown he's a policeman who just happens to be dating TV reporter Stefanie Von Pfeten and her brother is a scientist who's trying to deal with a speeding comment headed for Earth. But in the runaway comet business, even a near miss causes some real problems as the Earth's orbit goes out of kilter.From the survival of the Earth we go to the survival of Van Dien and his immediate family. His daughter's gangbanger boyfriend, Ryan McDonell actually proves to be of some use especially when he suspects a guy he knows as a crooked cop might mean the Van Dien group a lot of harm.My only question here is, why didn't they have Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and the rest of that crew to deal with the nasty comet?Pass this one up folks.

MELTDOWN is pretty interesting SCI-FI. No major budget, very few special effects; but decent acting and a storyline of global doom is enough to sustain viewing. An asteroid grazes the atmosphere and thrust the Earth into an orbit closer to the sun. Global warming rapidly becomes unbearable. A determined LAPD cop(Casper Van Dien)goes all out to save the world from certain annihilation as the rising temps are devastating. The pressure is on to save mankind from this solar catastrophe; as well as protect his daughter, nurse ex-wife and TV reporter girlfriend. The cast includes: Stefanie Von Pfetten, Venus Terzo, Amanda Crew and Vincent Gale.