Month: April 2021

Released: October 2000

Director: Joe Berlinger

Rated R

Run Time: 90 Minutes

Distributor: Artisan Entertainment

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Jeffrey Donovan: Jeffrey Patterson
Stephen Barker Turner: Stephen Ryan Parker
Erica Leerhson: Erica Geerson
Kim Director: Kim Diamond
Tristine Skyler: Tristin Ryler

When you have a horror movie that is a runaway success like The Exorcist, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Alien, how do you follow that up successfully?  The even better question is: Should you?  I’ve gone on many a tangent about sequels and their place in the film industry.  Most of the time, it’s usually a business decision to go forward with a sequel.  For other genres, sequels to movies like Star Wars are obvious.  There are places that you can go creatively with a sequel, but at the end of the day, it’s ultimately a business decision if a sequel gets made.  In horror, sequels are generally not really successful outside of some mainstream series like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th.  There’s an established audience that has expectations for a sequel to take things to another level as well as deliver more of the same.  Sometimes, though, a movie should just be one and done and left alone.  Here’s a perfect example: The Exorcist.  The original film was controversial to be sure, but people still went to see it and it ended up being one of the most talked about and revered horror movies of all time.  The second movie, Exorcist II: The Heretic took everything that was great about the first movie and threw it out the window for a more “fantasy-based” kind of film.  Exorcist II ended up being one of the worst sequels of all time, and an even worse movie.  Apparently, somebody at Artisan Entertainment at the turn of the century decided that The Blair Witch Project needed a sequel, so they rushed forward into production, and what we ended up with was Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.

Book of Shadows follows a group of Blair Witch Project fans as they head to Burkittsville, Maryland to actually look for the witch, despite the fact that the film had already been debunked as fiction.  As these folks head into the woods, strange things begin to happen as they find their equipment wrecked.  Heading to a nearby warehouse, even stranger begin happening as the group starts to turn on each other.  From a narrative standpoint, having a sequel take place outside of the original film’s world is not a bad idea.  Blair Witch 2 opens with a montage of clips talking about The Blair Witch Project as a movie.  It’s actually a rather clever setup to what happens in the film.  The problem is that the film doesn’t actually stick with that idea, and opts for a more traditional and gore-laden experience, which is exactly the opposite of what the original film was about.  For every step The Blair Witch Project took to push the genre forward, Blair Witch 2 opted to not do that and took several steps back.

Even if the story had played out the way I think the film-makers had intended to, there are a lot of other problems here than just the story.  The acting is fucking awful.  Part of what made the original film succeed was the chemistry between the characters.  Given the situation that they were in, the audience could feel the isolation, stress, and desperation of what those characters were going through.  Here?  It looks like the actors were reading off of cue cards.  The reaction between the actors doesn’t feel natural.  It feels incredibly forced, especially when certain characters get angry.  We aren’t given any reason to care about what happens to these characters, so when the bad stuff happens, it feels like the film is checking something off a list.  In order to craft tension, you need something that ties the characters together, and we didn’t get that here.  There is no tension to be had here.  The audience doesn’t get curious about happens next.  In fact, the movie actually focuses more on the gore and violence surrounding the Blair Witch.  Again, that’s not what the original film was trying to go for.  In fact, the original film really didn’t have much in the way of blood at all, outside of a clump of hair and a tooth.  That was it.  Here, the film focuses more on people being stabbed and eviscerated, and honestly, the gore really isn’t that impressive.

Blair Witch 2 was supposed to be far more cerebral than visceral, which is what Joe Berlinger was trying to go for.  Unfortunately, the idiots at Artisan Entertainment recut the film against the director’s will and put scenes of gore and violence into the film which they thought would spice it up.  It didn’t.  In an interview with Deadline, Joe Berlinger was traumatized by the fact that not only did the studio go behind his back, but that the subsequent reaction to the film hit him pretty hard.  Of all the times to use the Alan Smithee pseudonym, this would’ve been it, and I wouldn’t have blamed Joe for it.  Studio interference is really nothing new to hear about these days, but for the most part, studios get involved to keep a film on track and make it the best that it can be.  But every so often, as was the case with Alien 3, studios often think they’re smarter than they really are and damage the film to the point where it’s an incoherent mess.  There are some really good ideas here that could’ve been fleshed out.  I mean, Blair Witch 2 could’ve pushed the genre forward even more.  But because of some arrogant suit in a position of power thought that he/she knew better, Blair Witch 2 ended up being one of the worst sequels and movies ever made.  That’s not to say that Berlinger’s true vision would have been better, but at least he would’ve had ownership of it.

Ultimately, the actors involved with this movie would still go on to better things.  Jeffrey Donovan would star in several hit series including Burn Notice, which would run for 6 years.  The director, Joe Berlinger, would go back to directing and producing documentaries after his horrendous experience with Blair Witch 2.  His documentaries have been pretty successful, especially the one he did for Metallica, Some Kind of Monster.  Erica Leerhson would go on to star in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as well as the direct-to-video sequel to Wrong Turn, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End.  So, some of the people involved with Blair Witch 2 found some success afterwards.  Ultimately, Blair Witch 2 failed on a number of levels.  A lot of those issues I can lay squarely at the feet of Artisan Entertainment.  By turning Blair Witch 2 into a more traditional sequel, the studio robbed the film of any chance it may have had at being a commentary on the response to the original film.  I can’t outright hate Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.  I understand what Joe Berlinger, as a director, was trying to go for.  It’s just a shame that studio execs had a different idea, and that idea ended up putting the franchise on the back-burner until 2016.  Blair Witch 2 is a fascinating film, really.  It’s fascinating in what it could have been and what it actually ended up being.  Ultimately, I think Joe Berlinger was in a lose-lose situation.  Even if he had been able to make the movie the way he wanted, he still would’ve had to contend with audiences that hold the original film in such high esteem.  There really was no way for this movie to succeed.

My Final Recommendation:
Actual Film: 2/10.  It’s awful.
What Could Have Been: 6/10.  Joe Berlinger wouldn’t have been able to salvage certain aspects of the film, if had been allowed to do what he wanted to do.
Final Score: 4/10.

Released: July 1999

Directors: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez

Rated R

Run Time: 82 Minutes

Distributor: Artisan Entertainment/Lionsgate Studios

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Heather Donahue: Herself
Joshua Leonard: Himself
Michael C. Williams: Himself

1999 was one of the strongest years for movies in a long time.  There were a lot of tentpole movies that came out that year that have regarded as some of the most spectacular movies ever made.  We saw outstanding efforts like The Matrix, which pushed the boundaries of visual effects to a whole new level.  1999 also gave us the first Star Wars movie in 16 years, The Phantom Menace.  As far as horror movies are concerned, we got End of Days, which was the first Arnold Schwarzenegger film that he did after his heart surgery at the time.  It wasn’t the greatest film, but I had a lot of fun with it.  The goofy Deep Blue Sea also hit theaters, giving us a wild time with Samuel L. Jackson, Thomas Jane, and LL Cool J.  However, there was one horror movie that came out in 1999 that I skipped.  I thought it looked too silly to work and I didn’t really buy into the marketing and hype at the time.  This movie ended up revolutionizing an entire genre and became a massive hit that has yet to be repeated.  That movie is the found-footage thriller known as The Blair Witch Project.

The Blair Witch Project follows three student film-makers as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the legendary “Blair Witch.”  Heading out into the woods outside of Burkittsville, Maryland to film their documentary, Heather, Josh, and Mike end up getting lost in the woods, seemingly hunted by an evil presence.  The Blair Witch Project is a movie that breaks all the rules of conventional film-making.  Some, on purpose.  Others, not as much, but still add to the film’s mystique.  For instance, the narrative takes a completely different approach here.  At the beginning of the film, the audience is informed about the trio’s documentary and subsequent disappearance.  With that knowledge in mind, you go into the movie knowing the outcome.  You would expect it to be predictable, right?  Wrong.  Even though the film’s outcome is certain, the how and the why of their disappearance is at the heart of the film.  This is not the typical narrative that you would see from a conventional movie.  The Blair Witch Project starts out as a documentary would with the trio filming and interviewing people about the Blair Witch.  But once they head into the woods, that’s when things really start getting interesting.  Are the goings-on supernatural or just the group losing their collective shit?

The narrative isn’t the only thing that The Blair Witch Project turns on its head.  Let’s take the film’s namesake, the Blair Witch.  Is she the film’s actual villain?  We don’t rightly know, because we never see her, yet there’s clearly a presence in the woods that is not very polite.  So, again, I ask the question: Who is the villain here?  Maybe it’s the woods themselves, as Heather, Josh, and Mike end up finding themselves lost and going in circles.  Or is it the trio themselves?  The answer is deliberately never clear, despite some clues pointing to the existence of the Blair Witch.  Let’s talk about the cinematography itself.  Since The Blair Witch Project is a found-footage film, everything that you see is taking place from a first-person perspective.  It depends on who is holding the camera.  Some shots are in black-and-white, indicating shooting on film, while other shots are color.  The framing in the film is also very interesting.  There are moments when one of the characters is supposed to be fully in frame, but they accidentally didn’t at some point.  Normally, something like that would be a death sentence for a film-maker, but for a movie like this, it lends credibility to the fact that these characters are amateur film-makers, so they’re going to be making some mistakes, as anyone would.  That gives the film a realistic feel.

The acting in this film is outstanding.  Heather, Josh, and Mike, play themselves in this film, and the chemistry between the three is amazing.  There are moments of levity in the film, but as they realize that they are lost, they begin to get stressed out to the point where they start turning on each other.  This is aided by the fact that the actors themselves were getting stressed out to the point where they were snapping at each other.  In a conventional film, you generally don’t push your actors to the point where they want to hit somebody.  Yet, for this movie, it worked.  It wasn’t just the actors pushing each other, it was the directors themselves that were putting these folks into really stressful situations.  A lot of the reactions that you see throughout the movie are real.  There are moments where they are simply reacting to what the film-makers are putting them through, so you feel every stressful moment.  While it does work on film, it’s a method that can cause real tension between actors and the directors, and not always in a good way.  Thankfully, it paid off.  In fact, all that stress and freaking out that you see in the film is what drives the film’s intensity.  The Blair Witch Project doesn’t rely on cheap jump-scares or gore to scare people.  It’s all about the human interaction to the world around them.  It gets really creepy.

Let’s talk about the film’s marketing for a bit.  The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999.  There was no social media; no YouTube, no Facebook, no Instagram.  The film had none of that, and yet ended up being credited as the first movie to have “viral” marketing.  Spoiler alert:  The Blair Witch does not exist.  She never has.  The mythology of the film and the disappearance of the three film-makers was all fiction.  Yet, the marketing for the film implied that it was all real.  There were Missing posters featuring the main characters, and the trailers for the film indicated that real film-makers had legitimately disappeared in the area.  There was even a special feature called Curse of the Blair Witch that added to the whole thing.  The effort that the film-makers took to convince people that The Blair Witch Project was real, was even more impressive than the film itself.  The release of The Blair Witch Project was timely back in 1999, because a movie like that really couldn’t be made today, at least not with that kind of marketing.  While I didn’t necessarily buy into the marketing of the film, a lot of people did, and it wasn’t always a good thing.  Burkittsville, Maryland was a sleepy little town on the East Coast.  Unfortunately, fans of the film flooded Burkittsville in an effort to find the “real” Blair Witch.  It was attention that the town really didn’t want.  In fact, the movie was not filmed in Burkittsville, but in Seneca Creek State Park, which was about 25 miles away.  In the Blu-Ray’s commentary, the film-makers themselves had implored people to leave Burkittsville alone.  This is the kind of unintended side-effect that a marketing campaign and film can have.

The Blair Witch Project was not the first found-footage movie.  That honor goes to Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust.  The Blair Witch Project, however, is the first film to bring that style of film-making into the 21st century.  It changed the way that horror movies could be approached and ended up being one of the best horror movies of the last 25 years.  I skipped it initially, because I didn’t think that style of film-making would take off.  Boy, was I wrong.  There were a lot of imitators including one horrendously mismanaged sequel released the following year, and one direct follow-up in 2016.  I have to admit that I loved the hell out of this movie.  For a movie made for around $60,000, it went on to bank nearly 250 million dollars, ensuring its place as one of the highest-grossing horror movies ever made.  The Blair Witch Project is one of the most unique and influential horror movies ever made.  There’s no doubt about it.  I’m glad I finally got around to watching it.  They took risks with this movie and it paid off big time.  I may be late to the party, but I’m absolutely recommending this film to anyone interested in horror movies.

My Final Recommendations:  Don’t go looking for evil witches in the woods. 10/10

Released: August 2020

Director: Jay Baruchel

Run Time: 81 Minutes

Not Rated

Distributor: Shudder/RLJE Films

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Jesse Williams: Todd
Jordana Brewster: Kathy
Jay Baruchel: Ezra
Simon Northwood: The Man
Niamh Wilson: Aurora

One of the many things I love about horror movies is that they are often used as a kind of a dark reflection of our society and how we function as a society.  Most horror movies have some kind of social commentary that’s interwoven throughout the film.  Sometimes it’s more brazen and in-your-face with movies like Cannibal Holocaust or I Spit on Your Grave.  Other times, it tends to be more subtle and gets under your skin with classics like Frankenstein.  But there also times when some of these movies can be very self-aware and self-deprecating.  Movies like Cabin in the Woods and Evil Dead II not only celebrate the genre, but they also make fun of the genre’s conventions and audience expectations at the same time.  There’s nothing like a little jab to get you to let your guard down before scaring you silly.  That said, there are a lot of horror movies out there that really don’t have a lot to say outside of grossing you out with over-the-top gore and shocking moments.  Slasher movies in particular usually don’t have anything to offer outside of murdering a bunch of useless and horny teenagers.  There’s nothing really wrong with that if that’s what you want in a horror movie.  I will admit that sometimes, I’ll go in for that.  Every once in a while, however, you come across a horror movie that actually has some important observations to make, especially in these trying times.  Random Acts of Violence is one of those movies.

Random Acts of Violence follows comic-book writer Todd as he embarks on a road trip with his girlfriend Kathy alongside friends Ezra and Aurora.  The reason?  Todd has suddenly developed writer’s block so he can’t find an ending to his current run of Slasherman comics.  His comic-book protagonist was inspired by the infamous I-90 serial killer(in the film), who was responsible for hundreds of deaths and disappearances along the I-90 corridor.  Todd and company decide to take a road trip to a comic-book convention in the hopes that Todd could be inspired by the places they visit.  Little do they know that someone has been reading Todd’s comics and begun to kill and stage their victims in the exact same manner that he had shown in his comics.  It’s no secret that the public at large, especially here in the United States, has a bizarre fascination with serial killers and mass murderers, fictional or other-wise.  We’ve been fascinated with these people ever since Jack the Ripper terrorized London in the 1800s.  Normally, I wouldn’t give the story in a slasher film a second thought, but Random Acts of Violence does something a little different.  On the surface, it seems like your typical brutal slasher flick, but there’s quite a bit more going on here.  We, as a society are fascinated with some of the darker aspects of human nature and this film specifically points that out.  Not only that, the film also has something to say about placing the blame for these killings.  For decades, the public at large has blamed rock ‘n roll music, television, comic books, and video games for the ills of society despite the complete lack of evidence connecting the two.  The film also points out the fact that while we recognize serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy, what about their victims?  It’s an outstanding observation, because it doesn’t just apply to real-life, but also the film world as well.  Can anybody name the victims of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, or Leatherface?

Random Acts of Violence being a slasher film at its core, you would expect there to be some knarly kills.  Yes…and no.  While some kills are shown on screen, others aren’t, and that’s going to bother some people.  That said, the film doesn’t shy away from the aftermath, especially when it comes to the film’s first kills.  The first attack on a minivan with a group of stoners was particularly vicious.  While it cuts away after the guy gets stabbed to death, Todd and company drive by the crime scene and see how the bodies were posed.  It’s an incredibly gruesome image, and it stands out, because things like this have happened, and the characters response to it is pretty realistic.  The kills in this film aren’t necessarily elaborate, but they’re fast and hard-hitting.  That’s one of the things I love about this movie:  The effects and gore are all done practically.  I also love the visual aesthetic of this film.  The colors are surprisingly vibrant to the point of over-saturation giving the film a pitched fever-dream feel to it.  There are also moments that are completely animated, which are absolutely stunning to look at.  The animation is fantastic.  This movie is beautiful to look at it, despite its grim and nihilistic nature.

I have to give credit where it is truly due.  I wouldn’t have expected a movie this brutal from somebody like Jay Baruchel.  Who is Jay Baruchel?  He’s the guy who voiced Hiccup in the How to Train Your Dragon films and played the nerdy apprentice to Nicolas Cage’s sorcerer from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  He’s always had this kind of goofy dead-pan sense of humor that’s made him one of my favorite actors in recent years.  I had no idea that he was such a huge fan of horror.  You can definitely tell that he’s a fan because of how this movie was made.  Not only did he have a part in the movie, he also directed it.  It’s his second directorial effort and it’s a doozy.  He absolutely has an eye for detail that you don’t get from people who aren’t fans of the genre.  The acting in this film is pretty good., but I don’t think anybody’s going to win any Oscars for this.  Jay plays Ezra, Todd’s friend.  Jesse Williams plays Todd, the comic-book writer while Jordana Brewster plays his girlfriend, Kathy.  Niamh Wilson plays Aurora, the artist.  While the acting’s pretty decent, we aren’t given enough time to flesh out these characters a whole lot.  Oddly enough, the stand-out here is Simon Northwood as the film’s villain.  This guy does a fantastic job playing a total psychopath.  At 6’2″, Simon cuts an imposing figure and when he comes after you, it’s pretty scary.  He’s known more for his stunt-work than acting, but that’s ok.  He’s got quite a list of things that he’s done.

While there are a couple of issues with this movie, I have to say that it’s nitpicking at best.  You already know if this movie’s going to be for you or not.  Truthfully, I had to watch this movie twice before I started writing this review.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it after watching it the first time, and that rarely happens to me after watching a slasher flick.  Usually, those are just one and done, and I move on to the next one.  But there was something about Random Acts of Violence that really stuck with me, even through my second viewing.  This is a much smarter movie than a lot of people are going to give it credit for and that’s because of Jay Baruchel’s direction and writing.  First time through, I thought the movie was just plain bizarre, but having seen it a second time, I love the hell out of it.  Yeah, it’s brutal and grim-dark, but at the same time, it’s one of the most beautifully shot indie movies that I’ve seen in a long time.  The movie apparently had issues finding a distributor over the last couple of years, but found one by way of Shudder and RLJE Entertainment.  Considering everything that’s been happening in the last few months, the arrival of Random Acts of Violence on home video is nothing short of timely.  It’s a movie that forces the audience to look at their own obsession with real-life crime and violence, and how art imitates life imitating art, but it doesn’t really give an answer to that question itself.  The film is actually smart enough to let the audience come to their own conclusion.  Like the film, I’m not going to tip my hat in either direction.  That’ll be up to you.  If all you want is a brutal slasher flick, then this movie will definitely satisfy in that regard.  If you’re looking for a little bit more, than I would still suggest checking it out, because it’s definitely willing to have a conversation about certain issues.

My Final Recommendation:  8.5/10

Released: February 2021(USA)

Director: Simon West

Not Rated

Run Time: 92 Minutes

Distributor: Screen Media

Genre: Action/Adventure

Cast:
Hannah Quinlivan: Meng Li
Xueqi Wang: Wentao Li
Liang Shi: Professor Jiang
Jason Isaacs: Jack Harris

The disaster film has been a large part of action cinema for decades.  Starting with Irwin Allen’s films like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and other films during the 70s like Earthquake, disaster movies have thrilled and terrified audiences for a long time.  After the 70s, the sub-genre went silent until the mid-90s with the release of Twister.  The resurgence of the disaster film in the last years of the 20th century gave us movies like Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Volcano, and Dante’s Peak.  Most of these movies were simple pop-corn action flicks.  During the first decade of the new century, the genre once again went silent with the exception of movies like 2012, The Core, and The Day After Tomorrow.  Almost every other disaster movie released during that time was a direct-to-scifi-channel schlock: Poorly executed stories with horrendous visual effects and acting.  Then in 2012, along The Impossible, a disaster movie based on the tragic tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean back in 2004.  This movie showed that you can have a thrilling disaster movie that actually focuses on characters, making for a more intense film.  While we still got more traditional disaster flicks, some of them came from countries that we didn’t expect them too.  For example: 2015’s The Wave came from Norway, and it was pretty spectacular while it had a basis in reality.  So far, in 2021, the only disaster movie that was worth mention was Greenland, a comet movie that I reviewed some time ago.  It was fantastic.  The movie I bring you today is Skyfire, a Chinese disaster flick that was initially released back in 2019, but didn’t hit the United States until about two months ago.  So, how does Skyfire compare to other disaster movies?  Let’s find out.

Skyfire begins on the island of Tianhuo, a volcanic island in the South China Sea.  As the volcano erupts, scientist Wentao Li ends up escaping the island with his young daughter, Meng.  Unfortunately, Meng’s mother is killed in a pyroclastic flow.  20 years later, Meng Li is a scientist in the employ of tycoon Jack Harris, who has built a theme park attraction on Tianhuo Island with a main attraction having a monorail going all the way up to the crater of the island’s volcano.  When the volcano begins to show signs of activity, Meng’s father shows up to get his daughter.  When the volcano finally erupts, it’s a race against time to evacuate people off the island.  Essentially, this is Dante’s Peak spliced with Jurassic Park.  Let’s be honest, shall we?  Nobody comes to these movies expecting a life-changing narrative.  No, people come to see shit blow up, and that’s exactly what happens here.  The movie surprisingly doesn’t waste much time getting to the action.  Within a couple of minutes of the movie starting, we’re witness to a pretty big eruption that sets the stage for the rest of the movie.  Every narrative trope that you’ve seen in every other disaster flick is here.  You’ve got estranged family members, a requisite romance, and a greedy corporate executive that ignores the warnings of a scientist.  It’s par for the course for these movies.  It’s a delightful throwback to the disaster movies of the 90s.  Is it as good as something similar like Dante’s Peak?  Not particularly, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Volcano, which came out around the same time, and I enjoyed Volcano.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way.  The acting in this movie is atrocious.  With the exception of the legendary Jason Isaacs, most of the actors are fairly monotone with very little emotion.  It’s either no emotion, or they go way over-the-top.  It’s even worse when you watch the movie with English dubbing.  There’s a reason why I hate dubbing in movies.  The performance from the voice-actors is very different from the actual actors on the screen.  The only one that is truly consistent here is Jason Isaacs as Jack Harris.  Isaacs has always been fun to watch, whether he’s playing a villain or good guy.  Sadly, his character is the only one that really gets any sort of character development, because everybody knows what happens to greedy corporate execs in disaster movies.  Isaac’s Jack Harris is one of those characters that I didn’t actually hate.  I didn’t really hate any character in this movie, but the leads were BLAND.  Hannah Quinlivan is a stunning actress, but I don’t think she can carry a movie on her own.  For the most, most of the characters are volcano-fodder.  You’re basically placing bets on who dies next.

That brings us to the action and the special effects.  Given that Skyfire is a volcano movie, the necessity of good visual effects is paramount.  Being a fan of Dante’s Peak, Skyfire doesn’t really hold a candle to that movie, as that film had a larger budget and utilized a lot of practical volcanic effects and stunt-work.  There was definitely CG used, but it was done to augment what was actually happening on the screen.  The volcano effects in Skyfire are largely CGI, but I have to admit that given the budget and who made this movie, the effects were rather spectacular…mostly.  There were a couple of shots here and there that were janky as hell, but this is a genre that really isn’t a specialty of Hong Kong film-making.  Given their inexperience with this genre, the results are surprisingly good.  The actual eruption is stunning.  Realistic?  Not really, given the kind of volcano that they’re using, but I’ll dig into those issue later on.  What really surprised me was the amount of actual practical effects that were used.  There were a lot of actual explosions that were being used and the stunt-work is really good.  Director Simon West cut his teeth on movies like Con-Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and The Expendables 2.  I wouldn’t call him the greatest action director of all time, but he is very competent and that effort shows in Skyfire.  The film is a ride from beginning to end.  It’s perfectly paced, and it doesn’t over-stay its welcome.  For 90 minutes, it’s a roller-coaster ride.

If you’re looking for scientific accuracy in a volcano movie, you’d best stick with Dante’s Peak, because that movie at least made an honest effort to keep the science as accurate as possible when it comes to volcanos.  Skyfire takes any scientific accuracy and throws it out the window.  It is not a movie that is concerned with any accuracy whatsoever.  For example:  The volcano seen in the film is a cone volcano, so the lava that you see in this movie is unlikely to come from this kind of mountain.  Why?  The lava that comes from cone volcanos tends to be very sticky and it traps gases in it which results in extremely explosive eruptions like what you see in Dante’s Peak or the real-life eruption of Mount St. Helens.  Also, the idea of sticking an observatory in the crater of an active volcano is incredibly stupid.  It’s a structure that simply couldn’t exist on a mountain like that.  Not only that, the film claims that the mountain erupts unexpectedly quickly.  While it is true that volcanic eruptions are difficult to predict and sometimes it does happen, with a mountain like this there are a lot of warning signs that occur hours, even days before the main eruption.  The fact that the scientists didn’t even see these warning signs in advance, shows how incompetent they actually are.  Of course, if they did, we wouldn’t have a movie, so…c’est la vie.

Given the film’s clear disregard for scientific accuracy, weak acting, and by-the-numbers story, would I still recommend this movie?  Actually, yes.  Yes, I would.  Despite the issues that plagues the film, it’s a lot of fun to watch.  It starts off with a bang, and it really doesn’t let up.  The CGI is surprisingly decent and mixed with impressive practical stunts and effects.  It’s actually a really well-made disaster flick that ticks all the right boxes.  While I wouldn’t say that Skyfire is going to beat Greenland in terms of characterizations and story-telling, it’s a visual roller-coaster ride, and if you go into this movie expecting a good time, you’ll probably get it.  For those that are discerning in their disaster movie tastes, this might not be the movie that tickles your fancy.  For a Chinese movie that was directed by a British director and stars Jason Isaacs, I had a hell of a time with it.  Stupid?  Yeah, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t a lot of fun, and considering the amount of crappy DTV disaster movies out there, Skyfire stands pretty damn tall.

My Final Recommendation: Some film-makers are too pre-occupied with whether or not they could, but they don’t stop to think if they should.  7/10.