It’s amazing how seriously everyone takes the end of the Mayan calendar. That’s right in 2012 a calendar started before Columbus first brought small pox to North America is reaching its end. Were the Mayans onto something? Did they have foreknowledge of some great cataclysm or of the end of days from the book of Revelations? It could be. It is also possible that they just figured someone in Mayan society would update the calendar before it ran out in a few hundred years. Well the joke was on them thanks to the Spaniards because now there aren’t any Mayans to update the calendar. So when it runs out it that the end? Ask me on New Years day 2013.

One thing that the Mayan calendar has done for us in modern times is provide a quick target for filmmakers. The big studios hit it with 2012 the mega-disaster of a film that showed us all that John Cusack, while a cool dude, is no action hero. But the big studios aren’t the only ones getting in on the fun. Take Director Jason D. Morris’s film MILLENNIUM APOCALYPSE for example. The movie opens in with what could be the end of the world. The year is 2012 and a meteor or some other large, flaming, heavenly object strikes the Earth. Pretty heavy stuff for an opening, but is it really the fate of the world? We’ll find out as the film immediately jumps back to a few years to pick up the story.

Jordan (Shoni Alysse Cook) is a woman with a gift. It’s hard to tell if it’s precognition or an ability to read the history of an object, or a little of both. Whatever it is, she has a gift and there are many people who want to use it. Recruited into the Millennium group (very reminiscent of the one from Chris Carter’s MILLENNIUM television series from the 90’s). The group uses Jordan’s special talents to help solve crimes that seem out of the ordinary.

While Jordan is working on a case involving the murder of a number of teens she, her partner Christian (Joe Amos) and FBI agent John Morgan (William Martin) discover that there is something more sinister and widespread going on than they could imagine.
Microchips planted in the backs of the teen’s necks. A mysterious company making them for the government and strange visions haunting Jordan all point to something bigger. Jordan also begins to since that the case may somehow be related to the disappearance of her father years before. As the investigation progresses Jordan begins to suspect that these simple murders may somehow be connected to the biblical predictions of the end of the world and that if she can’t unravel the mystery then the whole world may suffer the consequences.

Jason Morris’s MILLENNIUM APOCALYPSE is a film with a good premise and a lot of potential, that didn’t feel like it went anywhere with it. Cook’s portrayal of Jordan, the gifted agent around whom the story revolves, was wooden and lacking in the depth of acting necessary to bring the character alive and make viewers care about the outcome. The film also dragged during the first half as the mystery emerged. Excellent special effects towards the end and a few surprising twists could not help the film recover its momentum and build the tension necessary to make the ending pay off. Ultimately, MILLENNIUM APOCALYPSE fails itself by having too much plot, and not enough story. That said, if you’re in the mood for a taste of X-FILES like conspiracy without all the sexual tension of Mulder and Scully, check out MILLENNIUM APOCALYPSE, but hurry, that pesky Mayan calendar is ticking away.