Die Feuerschlange

Have you ever wondered about those angels spoken of in the Bible of fire and sword? Well science fiction has uncovered an explanation for them. Turns out in Fire Serpent they are living creatures unlike our carbon based life form that live in solar flares. Every now and then they get themselves loose and wreak all kinds of havoc. Check in the Bible Leviticus Chapter Ten and you can read what one of these things did to the sons of Aaron.

Some wacko agent from Homeland Security played by Voyager's Robert Beltran's who's a little far gone on religion has this brilliant idea to use one of these things as a method of meting out some of us his own divine retribution. Nothing like pretending you're the Deity when the power gets thrust upon you. It's up to Buffy the Vampire Slayer veteran Nicholas Brendon and Emergency's Randolph Mantooth to stop the creature and he who seeks to use it.

It's kind of sad to see what some players come down to, but a paycheck is a paycheck. The science in the science fiction leaves a lot to be desired and if this thing could really be true and these creatures have visited us before, the earth would have been left a burning cinder several millenia ago.

A couple of campers, remembering Smokey the Bear's admonition that "only you can prevent forest fires" dutifully attempt to put out their campfire with water, only to be possessed/roasted by some angry fire entity (which occasionally growls or roars) that doesn't like water much. From there it torches or possesses anybody it can find, but it's out in the wilderness, so there aren't too many victims available. It's a smart fire creature, though, so it plots and executes a plan to...uhh, do something nasty, apparently.

Guess what? A government conspiracy, led by a lunatic who spouts off out-of-context biblical scriptures about fires, is trying to use the thing to wipe out people he doesn't like. Can you say "two-cliches-for-the-price-of-one?" Can you further believe this nut job with his "burning desire" is named (ready?) Cooke? Egad. His able assistant, unaware of his intentions, helps a firefighter find a way to extinguish the menace, with the predictable results as to who's going to end up french-fried and who survives. Theories about the invader abound: not only is it accused of apocalyptic tendencies, but apparently it came from solar flares. Because of these disjointed and impossible to reconcile backgrounds, plot holes proliferate faster than the charred bodies of victims. For example, why didn't these pyrotechnic wraiths sizzle the whole planet long ago?

The acting actually rises above the script and breathes some life into the characters' back stories and motivations. Special effects get a split-decision: some are impressive and interesting, others are just fake looking and cheap. Overall: watchable. However, nobody involved need write an Oscar acceptance speech.

Sometimes you just need a silly sci-fi monster flick, you know? Even for the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) where this premiered, it's hard not to be gobsmacked by the list of names that are attached to it. Writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens should be at least nominally familiar to anyone who has dipped their toes into modern novels of science fiction; the man himself may be dubious, but it's safe to say William Shatner is no one to sneeze at in the genre. And with Robert Beltran and Nicholas Brendon helming the cast, among others, the least that can be said for this romp is that it has some star power. Of course, the fact remains that 'Fire serpent' is an unrepentant TV movie, and no matter who is involved in such a production it seems destined for schlock - it's the nature of the genre, the medium, and the network. Still, anyone who comes across this in passing already knows what they're getting into, so there's not too much point in making a fuss. What we see is what we get, and there are no real surprises on hand; if you're looking for a cheesy, uninvolved, low-grade creature feature, look no further.

To wit: the dialogue, characters, scene writing, plot, direction, and acting are all direly forced and unconvincing, though sometimes the acting switches things up and is instead wholly underwhelming. While the computer-generated imagery isn't the worst I've ever seen, there isn't the slightest effort to blend the digital creations into the filmed footage; post-production wizardry has rarely been more transparent and obvious than it is here (case in point, watch for a death scene around the half-hour mark). In no time at all the picture becomes something that we can "watch" just by having it on in the background and not meaningfully engaging with it otherwise; this Sci-Fi lark is light, unsophisticated kitsch just as much as the Hallmark romance or the Lifetime thriller, just in its own way. On the one hand, this is a tad more inventive than some of its kin as it goes so far as to introduce far-out weaponry to combat far-out entities; on the other hand, this grows more tiresome and dull as it invokes biblical mythology. Then again, maybe all such ruminations are beside the point; 'Fire serpent' never pretends to be anything it's not.

I think the title's reach exceeds its grasp as it tries to weave in narrative elements beyond the basic concept of "aliens made of fire." Those ideas are worth exploring in and of themselves, but the tawdry nature of the TV production means this ninety-minute film probably wasn't the best place to smash them all together. Moreover, the more this tries to do within its constraints, the more contrived and tough to swallow each component part becomes; we're given a complete, cohesive story, but it feels less cohesive with each addition. No matter how weak the contributions are as they present the least that can be said is that everyone involved helped to make this happen, and I can't say the end result isn't baseline enjoyable on some level. Even with that spirit of generosity in mind, though, the picture desperately needed to trim some of its excess and focus more tightly on a much smaller number of stronger central notions. As it stands, I don't think it comes close to meeting the potential of the premise; as it stands, the entertainment 'Fire serpent' has to offer is balanced against an inability to make viewers particularly care. There are still far worse ways to spend one's time, but even if you're a diehard fan of someone involved, this is best left as something frivolous to provide mild diversion on a lazy, quiet day. Take that as you will.

Fire Serpent is a pretty run of the mill sci-fi channel movie of the week, which is strange considering how the one who 'created' the fire serpent concept, William Shatner, probably comes up with more wacky ideas than this. There's actually some messed-up creature potential with a thing like a 'fire serpent', as it's basically a gigantic fire-ball that spouts out of the sun, crashes to Earth, and sustains itself on human life and fossil fuels. But not much else is really explored, or exploited, aside from so-typical-it's-meh character schemes and a fairly complex level of figuring out how it is that the fire serpent actually goes about its business or how it can be stomped out. It's too run of the mill to get into any real interesting ground, but when compared to the last sci-fi channel movie featuring a Buffy alumni, Gryphon, Fire Serpent doesn't go into the depths of wretchedly hellish tripe all around.

This time we just get Nicholas Brendon as the 'young, teach-me-everything-from-a-mentor' young fireman, who meets Dutch Fallon (Randolph Mantooth, who's name is probably much cooler than anything else in the movie), a man who's been tracking the fire serpent for forty years, ever since it destroyed his girlfriend (which we see in a first inexplicable flashback at the start, then a second one where it's not really from his point of view as seen). Dutch, despite being an arsonist, is under the eye of an old rival, played by Rober Beltran, who also happens to be a big religious freak (some of this dialog is actually really funny, unintentionally of course). It all leads up to a showdown at a fossil-fuel station, where finally the cheesy sci-fi visual effects and limited action get their dues. Throughout we're treated to pretty half-note (not even quite one-note) characters, who occasionally talk in sound bytes from what might have been Shatner's pitch to the networks.

The lack of logic at times doesn't kill one's soul, but there's also not much to gorge on if you're looking for heavy action or twisted moments of delirious flights of sci-fi fancy; closest things I saw were when the serpent cut a woman in half (through a human host), and an amazingly entertaining- for all the wrong reasons- scene where a henchman tosses a grenade in Jake's car, leading to a very odd scene with the henchman just standing a while holding a targeting gun and not doing anything until a policeman and the fire serpent do their own things in the scene. Yet a lot of the time I just sat waiting for stuff to happen that built up to nothing very special, and a climax that didn't have me yelling or cursing at the screen but seemed still annoying in just going bigger and crazier (and not fun crazy) until that last warped moment of an open-book ending. Fire Serpent 2 perhaps? I'd really hope not, as there wasn't enough to really sustain the first one, except over-cooked plot contrivances (or under-cooked depending on point of view), cardboard acting (even when one is shot and near-death), and a fairly limited creature by way of the visual effects (not like Gryphon, though that's like saying it's the clap instead of AIDS).

This was absolutely awful but unfortunately I've seen worse. At least the production value is good (It doesn't look like someone shooting their first film with a camcorder). The basic story had possibilities but it went nowhere. It was just cheesy and a waste of time but considering that William Shatner wrote and produced this what do you expect but cheese. The major test of this is that I walked out of the room when it was playing and didn't care if I missed any of it. The only good thing about this was seeing Randolph Mantooth in something other than a soap but even he couldn't save this turkey. All I've seen Robert Beltran and Nicholas Brendon in since their series have ended has been really bad TV or straight to video movies. I should have known this would be bad but I keep hoping for something decent.