Change Your Image
aliway
Along came university where I met others who introduced me to a remedy for bad films. Alcohol. And indeed, it made the films better, a 'so bad it's funny' attitude. And so I now review bad films with my friend on the university radio station, and a third is joining us for a television show style review at some point in the future, in similar style to 'Mystery Science Theatre 3000', Charlie Brooker's Newswipe or the Nostalgia Critic.
Reviews
Impact (2009)
Science does not work that way!
The last review I did was for 'Tornado Valley', the summary title I put for that was 'But...but...tornadoes do not work that way!', and as you can see from the summary title for this review, this is now the second, wait, third film I have seen where the makers of the film have broken the laws of reality.
First problem, whether it was a dwarf star or something else that doesn't make sense, it still has to be one big freaking meteor to knock the MOON out of orbit.
By the way, that's the plot, the moon gets knocked out of orbit and is on a collision course with Earth. That hasn't been done before ("Cough! Armageddon! Cough! Deep Impact!...wait, those were meteors, this is a moon...). Okay, let's face it, it's a brilliant idea, one that certainly got my interest. SO WHY RUIN IT?! You know it's gonna suck when night falls all around the globe!
So guess what the (first) stereotypical military American solution to saving the planet is? Blow it up with pretty much every nuclear missile the US has. Which the people of Earth can see, somehow, through space. Because it worked so well in 'Independence Day', 'The Crazies 2010', 'The Return of the Living Dead', 'Mars Attacks', 'The Last War', 'Atomic Train',.... Also, it's a moon! It controls our oceans, destroying it will screw with the planet. And you're gonna need a lot more missiles than the film portrayed to blow it up. Which was true. The inevitable failure occurred. And whilst the scientists were looking at the effects, I was saying "You've angered off the moon and it's coming at you faster,". I cried when this actually proved to be the case! The moon "has increased velocity,"! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!
Then we have THAT floating scene. The scene which starts off with a container ship and its contents floating upwards before moving onto cars. Now I did yell 'WHAT?!' at the screen. I'm not an expert on the moon or magnetism, but I do remember vaguely something about the magnetic field the moon has, so okay that may explain...bales of hay are now floating up...is this now gravity? Then why aren't the sea levels rising? That's what the moon controls.
After the floating scene ends...for no apparent reason, we follow a grandpa (James Cromwell...why the Hell were you in this? You should be doing better!) and two kids (Don't know their character/real names, don't care), who spot a café. The kids run off and grandpa says "Careful now,", I say "Be careful running around the burning wreckage,". So the kids go into the café, see some water, start drinking it and the owner tries to kick them out for it. Grandpa comes in and beats him with a stick. Yes. The café owner is in the wrong. Not the two kids who were stealing precious supplies. Sure, there was a lot of water, but the point remains!
I could go on about the stupid scenes but I need to get on. Clichés. You can probably do a drinking game on the number of clichés in this. Heartfelt message from the president, obvious romance, and the American solution of blowing stuff up included.
The special effects are quite good for a television movie series. The acting however is quite good, at least the actors and actresses sure do redeem the film slightly. It's just the common problem for films you generally see on SyFy...DIALOGUE AND SCENES! The scenes I have already gone over, and a great example of dialogue is Grandpa telling the café owner to let go of the kids, two seconds later hitting the café owner with his stick, despite the next shot showing the kids behind Grandpa, indicating that the café owner wasn't even holding the kids when Grandpa told him to let go.
Right, I'm wrapping it up. This film(s) makes no sense, and the scenes and clichés will drive you nuts. Watch at your own peril.
Anna's Storm (2007)
Surprisingly adequate
The second...weather related film I've seen off Syfy was definitely the better.
We follow a town which becomes the victim of a meteor shower, which threatens the very Earth itself.
Now, I didn't expect much, but the special effects were actually not that bad, some great explosions and cars flipping into the air. The meteors themselves, well let's admit it, they weren't as good as 'Deep Impact' or 'Armageddon', but they were mediocre.
The acting wasn't that bad either, some great acting in fact, but like every single other film off SyFy, some scenes were terrible. Now that's a rare, some scenes. Mostly films off SyFy have all terrible scenes. The teenagers however are quite annoying sometimes, particularly at the start when they seemed to hate their parents for no reason. We then find out the Mayor's daughter Emily (Desirée Loewen) doesn't want to move town whilst a sheriff's son Seth (Graham Wardle) is being forced to write to his mother. Why the son doesn't like his mother and why the sheriff split with his wife I don't know, I kind of blacked out. I'm guessing she had an affair. Sheeree J. Wilson does a great job at playing Mayor Anna Davenport-Baxter, but I do feel she comes on to strong at some points, and too weak at others, as does Peter LaCroix as Jack Baxter.
Oh, by the way, Anna and Jack's son is dead. We are told this and apparently his ghost is hovering around his mother. Good for him. But seriously, Anna being haunted by her dead son (Zak Ludwig) actually has no impact on the film, there was seriously no point in having that in the film. She wasn't even being haunted! She couldn't see him! There is one scene where you think she sees him, but then again she was probably crying because she was thinking "Oh God we're gonna die,".
Oh and my favourite line of the film, when Seth was trapped under a tree and Emily was trying to help him, he says "Come on, if a meteorite can knock down a tree, you should be able to push it with your legs.". Where's his logic in that? Has he felt her leg muscles or something? Probably has, but this tree was massive, where did he get the idea that a girl in her late teens can move a tree that had to have weighed a hundred tonne, give or take.
Overall, not a bad stab at an apocalypse style film. Meteors have been done before, but so has everything else.
Nuclear Hurricane (2007)
For the love of God, STOP REPEATING YOURSELF!
I just found myself yelling at the television for the constant repetition of the two main characters, Linda (Jamie Luner), who's ex is on the island and appears to date the female sheriff, possibly I don't know, it appears like that, and Rusty (Jack Scalia).
But let's start at the beginning. What takes place is a poor version of '2001: A Space Odyssey', with the HAL 9000 being replaced by a computer called Staci. Linda and Rusty need to reboot the backup system, but the code they were given activates Security Protocol 13 (SP13), which makes Staci go berserk.
Now the repetition. Now, before doing the reboot Rusty tells Staci to lock the doors to the building. Why they do this I don't know. How they can do this when there's no...proper computer software on the doors, apart from keyholes, I don't know. Now get this, when Security protocol 13 kicks in, Staci doesn't do anything the lead characters do, for example, shutting down the protocol and rebooting the backup system. So, Linda tries to leave to pick up her ex so he can fix the situation, forgetting they locked the doors. So we then get the characters asking Staci to unlock the doors, which can't be done because SP13 denies their authority, and they can't get shut it down because they don't have authority, they can't call for help because of SP13, and repeat. Despite this Linda tries getting through doors MULTIPLE TIMES, only getting the same response. Because the first hundred times worked before.
Then the building has retinal scanners which Staci decides to ignore. So Linda, if the retinal scanners don't work, STOP TRYING TO USE THEM! And then asking Staci to unlock the door only leads to the same freaking thing she told you before!
Now, the title of the film is misleading. A nuclear hurricane. That sounds awesome and terrifying. We get a normal hurricane. Nowhere near nuclear. A threat is what we get. I WANT A NUCLEAR HURRICANE! THAT'S WHAT THE FILM PROMISED ME!
And then we have plenty of...terrible, terrible things. A pointless sub-plot of a woman giving birth, a sub-plot of Linda stealing Rusty's job, like 'Lava Storm' the settlement (an island) has an unlikely population of 9, vent shafts are not real sized (no-one builds them that big), the characters don't bother covering the camera because this might "piss her off" (though by all regards covering up the camera DOES NOT TURN OFF THE MICROPHONE!) a maintenance guy who doesn't really do much but try doors after being told they're locked, and, get this Linda trapped in a air vent in 135 degrees. We're not told whether it's 135 degrees Fahrenheit or 135 degrees Celsius, but she should have died, but nooooo. She jokes around by asking out the computer. WHAT THE HELL?
That's it, I'm wrapping up. This film is terrible, it makes no sense the dialogue is terrible, it repeats itself endlessly, we don't care about the characters, it repeats itself, the acting is wooden, it repeats itself and I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!
Ba'al (2008)
Quite good...somehow
I went into this film expecting a terrible piece of film that should not ever see the light of day. It's probably because of this I actually started to enjoy it.
Don't get me wrong, the special effects are as good as other bad films such as 'Boa vs Python' and 'Megashark vs Giant Octopus', some iffy acting here and there, and a bizarre plot, but somehow I started to get into it.
Lexia Doig, however, despite being a good actress, always seems to make me develop a hatred for whatever character she plays. Elias Toufexis I really like and, unfortunately I can't remember who plays the FBI guy who tries to arrest Helm (played by Jeremy London), but he was the best in my opinion.
There are some other downsides, such as Doig somehow hearing a beep in her van whilst inside the house, and travelling seems to take 5 minutes. Oh, and I missed the meeting when blood was classed as water.
But strangely enough, despite this being a bad film, I can't stress this enough, I actually enjoyed the film. For once I will not say "ignore this", give it a chance. It's most likely a hit and miss, but it's worth a shot.
Lava Storm (2008)
A very, very terrible film.
I really don't know what to say, apart from repeating the summary.
First of all, the bit at the end saying the film's events could happen, now, I'm not an expert, but I find it hard to believe one volcano going off could destroy the world. That segment didn't even try to make me believe, more telling me off than reasoning.
Then we have so many boring scenes. The photograph montage, the looking at each other for a few minutes without saying anything, a scene of them driving, these are just a few of them.
And there's very bad special effects, for example a very fake dam, and they couldn't even be bothered to show us the house exploding properly, just in a reflection. Also, when lava hits the bottom of the house, it does not cause the top of it to explode it seconds. It may rupture a gas pipe and cause the whole house to explode, but not the top.
Also, where the Hell is everyone? We see a town but apparently only 7 people live there; the five family members and the two dead people at the start.
Speaking of which, the son and daughter. Now, I was glad to find they were step-related after what I saw, but it was still creepy when they referred to each other as blood related, for example 'sis', it's just creepy!
But you can't blame the actors, they did the best of their situation. With the exception of Valérie Valois since she appeared to lose it at the end. Seriously, there was one point where everyone else in the scene had an expression of, what's the word, worried anticipation, cut to Valois' blank expression, before thinking 'oh yeah, need emotion here'.
So many bad things I want to talk about but thankfully the memory of the film is leaving my mind. Seriously people, unless every single other channel out there is just static, and only this was on, go read a book.
And on a final note, this film tells us that the best place to blow up a dam with a rocket launcher (don't ask me where it came from, I blanked out), is at the bottom.