User Reviews

!!!!! MILD SPOILERS !!!!!

Suppose you were in deadly danger and needed to be totally anon , what would you do ? If you answered " Hide in a cave " you'd probably be right . If you answered something along the lines of " Become a singing sensation at a Las Vegas casino " then you'd probably be carted off somewhere to be force fed anti-psychotic pills . Alternatively you could also be invited to write a script . Guess what ? someone was invited to write a script and it's called DISASTER .

Tracy is on the run from a Cult ( That's not a spelling mistake by the way ) and decides to hide out in Vegas as a star singer who's so famous her posters are plastered everywhere . Oh and she doesn't even bother to change her name , only her hairstyle . Do you think this is credible ? Can we expect to see a duo called Osama and Saddam singing The Desert Song at a downtown casino in the near future ? but who needs credibility when you've got Yossi Wein as director

Yossi Wein directed such fare as DEATH TRAIN , US SEALS and OCTOPUS 2 so you know what to expect ie not much . If DEATH TRAIN resembled UNDER Siege 2 then DISASTER resembles the original DIE HARD except it's set in a casino , has little in the way of budget , with an unimpressive cast . It's also obvious the bad guy was written with a slimy limey actor in mind but couldn't get Rickman , Oldman or Bean ( Possibly because they saw the script ? ) so a plank of wood was cast instead . In fact I felt really sorry for Mr plank because there's so many flaming explosions in this film ( That's all there is in this movie - explosions ) and I was really worried he might get turned into charcoal

Which reminds me the special effects of cars , helicopters and buildings going up in flames are obviously achieved by setting fire to toys - Some child is going to be very upset on Christmas day - while the more convincing ...sorry less unconvincing effects seem to be stolen from other movies I think

Despite all this I couldn't help noticing Tracy has a well developed pair of lungs so maybe her career as a singer isn't as ridiculous as it seemed at first . Tracy's lungs were the only reason I didn't off the TV

Ugh! I almost puked after I watched that... A very poor action movie, with mediocre performances, simplistic effects and sets, and a really clichéd storyline.

Disaster, also known as Cult of Fury, stars Jim Davidson as Roger, an average action hero. Marnie Alton plays Tracy, the girl that causes the whole trouble, and Sonny Surowiec plays Maxwell, an arrogant villain who thinks he's a big genius and that putting a bunch of bombs in Las Vegas is going to make him as famous as Hitler, Jesus and Martin Luther King. I'm not joking, that's what he says in some part of the movie!

Now, where's the problem? Maxwell decides to take hostages, hunt down the hero and the girl. The hero's sidekick, Kenny, also has a problem: his daughter, Jenna, is in danger. And THAT'S where everything starts to collapse... literally.

Maxwell places bombs anywhere around the place and activates them using a PDA. He presses the "bomb icons" on the screen and... BOOM! A bomb explodes. What really surprised me is the amount of innocent people dying in this movie. It's a whole lot of people, I'm telling ya! At the end of the movie, a TV anchorwoman reveals the body count of this movie. The villain died. The hero's boss died. And dozens of innocent die...

...but it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, the hero is alive, the girl is alive, the sidekick and his daughter are alive. All's well that ends well, right? Nobody is going to care about all those poor people who died. I really felt sorry for them, especially for the villain, who seemed to be a nice guy! If you find this movie in a video store, skip it, visit the IMDb and vote this a 1 out of 10. It deserves it.

I have to say that this was really fantastic. It manages to get absolutely everything wrong that a movie can possibly get wrong. It takes "cheap" to a whole new level, splicing in random footage from old newscasts. And you will be treated to a closeup of the bad guy using his PDA to set off bombs about 20 times, maybe two or three variations on the theme. It is a floor plan with about six clickable locations.

To call the acting wooden would be an insult to trees. But we don't expect good acting from such films, we want action! But sadly, they can't even do this right. For some reason, all the guys from SWAT and the bad guys private army carry assault rifles, but prefer to punch each other instead. There are two or three different guys who break the necks of their opponents while using only the strength necessary to open a jar of mayonnaise. They do it quite casually.

The effects? As part of the finale, you will be treated to the destruction of the Hoover Dam. To recreate in your own projects, take a postcard featuring the dam and set it under your bathroom faucet.

But really, this masterpiece all comes from the writing. Expect to be entertained by the random, yet affable dialogue. Hey, if you're looking for good writing, go read a novel or something.

Good luck with this movie, I think it will stand out in your mind - much like "Night of the Leapus". You will find yourself wondering again and again whether it is meant satirically. I could only have been happier if there were a director's commentary on the DVD.

The girlfriend of a crazy cult leader runs away from him after he blows up a cruise ship and two years later ends up singing raunchily in a Las Vegas casino. She is spotted by a contact of the cult leader so he goes to Las Vegas to take her back. Now most people, even crazy cult leaders, would have waited until she left work and nabbed her. Simple. This one though fills the place with bombs and assaults the casino with a small army who shoot lots of people, descend from the roof and cause complete chaos enabling the ex-girlfriend to evade capture helped by two cops. Then basically it is cat and mouse in the casino. A gunfight here, an explosion there and so forth.

The clichés come thick and fast. One of the cops has a big ego and is a loose cannon. One of the cops is a drinker and a bad father (his daughter turns up at one point whining at him). The police Chief yells at everybody. The villain muses philosophically. Etc. Etc.

The acting could only be described as boring. The cops are interchangeable and the lead actress is so ordinary you wonder why the cult leader is so obsessed with her. The villain Maxwell has all the menace of a fluffy kitten. Having zero charisma you wonder why he had so many followers.

So on all fronts not a film that reaches even to a decent level.

I bought this on DVD as Amazon put it into my "recommendations list". Shame on you, this movie should never be recommended to anyone (except perhaps serial killers who want to reform). As someone who after watching just about every disaster movie there is (and now I know how to pilot a 747 in a lightning storm,what to do if ever a volcano springs up in Doncaster in England, or tornado landslide or earthquake)thought, oh I saw Jim Davidson (not our English comedian) in a movie called Crowfoot and thought it was watchable (perhaps Erin Gray was the real reason for watching it, but thats besides the point) I wondered if he could repeat the role of an American Cop who plays by the book. NO. Here we have the usual cop who wants to be Mr bigshot and knows it all, fine if you are Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson, their acting skills can add a hint of irony and comedy to this sort of thing, sorry Jim, you are not in the same league.

I think that there was a storyline but in got lost in the timeless world of constant explosions, how the casino remained standing after the amount of explosions beats me, Gerry Anderson did a much better job in the puppet series Thunderbirds back in the 1960's.

The ending, well it was incredible in that it was so lame. There they were baddie and ex girlfriend stood on top of the Hoover Dam, by this point I was guessing what effects could be used, I thought we would end up with the rerun of the dam that cracks open in the first Superman Film, which I believe was partly edited into an episode of the A-Team or something in the eighties, but no we had a picture postcard of the dam been blown up several times and in between shots it magically part repaired itself.

I'm glad it only cost me £1.96 from Amazon otherwise I would be returning it to the seller wanting my money back, whether the charity shop that is going to get lumbered with it sell it remains to be seen, at least if they get it donated back several times, they would make more of a profit for a good cause.

As for Amazon, sorry I will not be taking you up on any more recommendations from now on.

Alright, before I'll lend my personal opinion about this movie, let me first try and tell you a bit about the plot, and yes, I am trying very hard not to laugh while using the word "plot", but stick with me, there is sort of a story here, bad... really bad, but a story nonetheless.

Maxwell is the leader of a cult (the Cult of Fury I am guessing?). He does not like where the world is headed, kids (*looks through my hastily scribbled notes*) killing each other, and pornography everywhere (there was a third thing that he didn't like, but I didn't have time to write it down, and I AM NOT seeing the movie again to get it!). The state of the world is in a bad place, but luckily Maxwell has a plan to make all this right: blow up a cruise ship killing hundreds (if not thousands?) of innocent people. Now, you gotta admire a man like that, for standing up to his convictions... and yes, that was sarcasm, pure sarcasm. But honestly, that's not entirely true, you see, he is really doing it to impress his girlfriend (soon to be wife) Tracy, like he says, as a "wedding present". Unfortunately Tracy doesn't feel quite the same way about this present, and leaves him. Luckily for her, Maxwell is nearly blind and deaf and doesn't see her 30 ft. away escaping into a car.

2 years later, we are in Las Vegas. Tracy has managed to elude her old lover, but only because of sheer luck, you see, she has been hiding in Las Vegas as a showgirl with posters everywhere. You gotta admire that kind of courage, but perhaps her plan was to lure Maxwell to Las Vegas because (and I am sorry for revealing the end of the movie here) that city ultimately becomes his downfall. Sorry for that, let me try to get back on track. Maxwell has now found Tracy, but he has also found Roger and Kenny, two cops, one an egotistical clown and the other an alcoholic (who has a really cool kid, btw, with nerves of steel), who will, of course, foil his plans and save the city. Fast forward through an endless series of pointless explosions and we arrive at the Hoover dam where Maxwell finally dies, but not before bringing disaster to the movie, erh... city.

OK, many good reviews have already covered all the technical faults of the movie and the extremely bad acting, so I'll skip that. Let me instead try to sell the movie to you, because there is a few good reasons to actually see the movie... 1) go see "Disaster" if you like one-liners, because I am pretty sure that the writer was paid per pound of one-liners (I am guessing that the movie made him a millionaire). 2) go see the movie if you like really bad foley work, because this movie is just awesome in that regard. The sounds are just so, awesomely wonderfully ridiculous. and 3) if you liked the bad action movies of the 80's, because this must be a homage to those, just look at the haircuts, the way they talk and even how they are dressed. Of course, since the director borrowed scenes from actual 80's films, he had to make this a period piece.

Ultimately all I have to say is this, Well done to all the involved parties! You have succeeded in wasting my time and anyone else who have ever watched Disaster. I sincerely hope that you were at least paid well to sell your soul like this.

*WARNING: SPOILERS*

This is one of the best acted, most intense and oh so real action movies I've ever watched. How this didn't get a theatrical release is absolutely beyond me. Or an Oscar. Marnie Alton should certainly have won an Oscar for her fantastic performance in this masterpiece of a movie, and Yossi Wein should have won an Oscar long ago for U.S Seals! I mean when that villain blew up the overpass, I could really see the fear in the eyes of that poor truck driver and it made me feel like I was there and feeling this too. All the effects were some of the best I've ever witnessed, it should have also won an Oscar for "Best Special Effects". I just can't get over how this masterpiece of cinema has gone almost unnoticed for the last 3 years. I have to make a change to that. I am going into town and handing out free copies and urging everybody to rate and review it. I know they'll enjoy it and maybe a cult following will eventually get it a theatrical release. It's such a fantastic movie I just can't over it. I am watching it just now for the 33rd time and haven't missed one minute. I've cancelled many of my plans just so I can watch this masterpiece and I feel no regret. This has brought me more joy than anything else on the planet probably could.

Erm, maybe not...

This movie was terrible, and for that reason, was hilarious.

It's funny to think that once upon a time NuImage used to do movies like Hard Justice, The Peacekeeper, Top Of The World, Scarred City and many more. By no means were these movies masterpieces, but they were solid, well made and above all highly enjoyable action movies with excellent production values and solid action scenes. Hard Justice being one of the best direct to video action movies I've ever seen. But where did it all go wrong? Did they lose money over spending considerable budgets on movies that went direct to video? In recent years they have put out such dreck as U.S Seals, Derailed, Death Train, dreadful Operation Delta Force movie after another and much more. Why are they even employing this Yossi Wein anyway? Currently on IMDb, only one of his movies have a rating over 3 and what's even worse is that the production budgets in his movies certainly aren't as low as other awful B-movie directors like Albert Pyun, Jim Wynorski, Fred Olen Ray etc. so he has no excuse to botch them in the way he does.

"Sudden Damage" as it's called in the UK is quite possibly the most pointless movie of all time. I won't even get started on the script, it is ridiculous and makes no sense what so ever. Much of it takes place in a casino in Las Vegas and the climax takes place at the Hoover Dam. If you've seen the earlier, and enjoyable NuImage movie that was Top Of The World then that will probably sound overly familiar. That's because this uses footage from Top Of The World and is basically the same movie with:

• Worse actors who are taking the thing far too seriously. Witness one of the most boring, and most wooden and unscary villains in history.

• A bunch of grainy news footage of a firefight from the 1980's by the looks of things. Not just by the quality of this can you tell this is dated footage, but the vehicles, the clothes, the hairstyles etc. are enough for us to tell this is from a different era. There is no way director Yossi Wein couldn't have seen this, but I'm only assuming he didn't really care or was deliberately trying to make a bad movie.

• Some of the cheesiest modelwork I've ever seen. Witness an inch tall plastic toy truck exploding which doesn't even match the type of vehicle used in the footage prior to it. Honestly, this is the worst modelwork I've ever seen. If you've seen the toy train in Derailed and thought that looked bad, just wait till you see this. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

• Car chase footage from Top Of The World which makes absolutely no sense being in this movie.

• Locations faked with actors standing over a static background, ,which looks like something out of the 1950's where the lighting of the sun doesn't match at all.

• Dreadful, out of sync voice dubbing.

• A cruise ship exploding with absolutely laughable CGI flames.

What's even sadder about this mess is that it actually looks like Yossi Wein has been handed a budget that something decent could have been made from. The interior set of the casino is passable and there's tons of explosions and some decent stunts. However, it looks like he's decided to blow it all on a random explosion inside the building every 2 minutes. I've never seen less competent directing than this, NEVER.

Overall, this is Grade Z material and the sheer quality or rather the lack of it will absolutely blow you away and it gets worse at an unbelievable rate. If you want a movie to make fun of then only Extreme Limits is a better choice than this.

Oh, and the title "Disaster" is because the villain, after falling several hundred feet down the Hoover Dam courtesy of footage from Top Of The World, has enough energy left to press a button which blows up the whole dam and causes a "Disaster". This only happens in the last 4 minutes and is so badly implemented it may as well not have been included at all.