Storm Catcher

This movies had decent parts but making luvable big lug Dolph act like a loving,sensitive,middle-aged family man just looked silly. Dolph needs to play a emotionless killing machine,which is what he does best. Tony Hickox's directing was pretty good even though it was a little over the top at times. The film looks higher quality than you'd expect but the story and the dialogue are lacking. Mystro Clark is horrible and should have been replaced with Louis Gossett,Jr. For a much better recent Dolph flick, check out Bridge of Dragons.

Quite bad indeed. Why on earth Dolph agreed to do this I'll never know. Maybe he just had some spare time. But he could have done something more worthwhile than this bore.

The story focuses on Jack Holloway who test flies a top secret plane (stock footage of a real plane that is not called Storm Catcher) and is framed for stealing it and hiding it in a hut out in the desert...or something. The way the story develops is VERY clichéd although I never did see the "twist" coming so it kind of did succeed there.

There are a few redeeming features, such as Mystro Clark as "Sparks" (desperately trying to add some black jive to the movie) and there are two oddball special agents who crop up every now and again but serve no real purpose other than to look like Hugo Weaving from The Matrix. I tell ya, the resemblance is uncanny. The woman who plays Holloways wife is badly miscast (and has found it difficult to get work since admitting her fondness of anal sex on the Howard Stern show) although the kid playing his daughter is a rather good actress.

Director (and Hugo Weaving lookalike) Anthony Hickox insists on using hand-held cameras in scenes that don't them and steadicam on scenes that do. I don't know what his method or technique of film-making is but it sucks.

The tagline is totally wrong too and gives you the impression that the story is going to build to a more satisfying climax. But it doesn't. Dolph is neither convicted nor is he sentenced so that is a huge lie.

Watch this movie on TV but do NOT rent it and do NOT buy it like I did. Save your money for Dolph's best movie...Joshua Tree.

It was on TV last night. I wasn't expecting anything since I knew nothing about it. There were some negative parts, plot gaps, action gaps, logic gaps, the use of what appears to be a F-117A as the new "mystery" super plane. If you took it seriously and you had any idea about military, then there is a good chance you will not like this at all. I have plenty of knowledge about military matters but I still enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of one of those war movies from the 80's, with lower budget and not much time given to film or edit it.

If you used to enjoy those films and you are willing to turn down your thinking for the duration of this movie, you can enjoy it. The action sequences are OK enough, Dolph has the best performance among the other actors and the whole thing is ridiculous enough to be interesting to watch to see what is going to happen next.

Not sure if I am ever going to buy the DVD of it, but I do not regret at all watching it last night.

I have to say that this movie gets an "A" for effort for at least trying to be a good action movie. And although on some points it fails to deliver, it is still however an entertaining action movie. As a said above there are a few things that aren't that good about this movie. There are only really too things that stand out to me:

1- The needless graphic, and sometimes slow motion, violence. We don't need a closeup, slow-motion shot of a guy spitting blood just to make the movie better.

2- Some of the camera angles- In some of the more "dramatic" scenes in the movie, the camera tends to have a life of its own and seem to shake quite violently. This is so bad that you can barely see what is happening in the scene and it ruins it. Another thing is the excessive use of slow-motion. Anthony Hickox, as you will notice, is no John Woo. Except for one scene I can think of, this type of filming doesn't work in the movie.

Apart from that this movie is rather entertaining and, aside from the usual B-Movie plot-holes and bad acting, can provide a decent nights entertainment. I give a 6/10 purely on entertainment value alone.

PS: Notice how in one shot of the StormCatcher, one of the control panels looks somewhat like a control panel from The Enterprise? See if you can spot it at the beginning of the film.

When you hear the name Dolph Lundgren, you rarely think of quality films. I can't off the top of my head name one single good film I've seen him in. However, you can usually count on him being a good lead in the typical more-Braun-than-brain action-flick. This film is a tad bit uneven, but it doesn't deserve its low rating and bad rep. The plot is not original, but the twists are fairly good(I didn't see them coming, at least) and the pacing is above par for the genre. The acting is a bit below average in some scenes, but it's mostly satisfactory. The characters are pretty much one-note and underdeveloped. The cinematography is stylish, but there are times when it's a bit overdone(you know how, sometimes when you watch a film, you're wondering if the cameraman has fallen asleep? There were times during this where I wondered if the cameraman was sober). The director uses slow-motion a bit too often, particularly during action scenes. To counter that, however, there's some very good camera-movement in some of the action scenes as well. The one-liners get to be a bit over the top in some parts of the film. The action is usually intense, but a bit too often it's unrealistic, to the point where it becomes completely unbelievable(a goon's gun running out of ammo in a half a second burst, for example). The film managed to do something quite unusual for the genre, namely surprise me several times. I thought on more than one occasion that I had figured out exactly what was going to happen next, but the film surprised me. Something that bothered me(being a weapons enthusiast) was the amateurish way the guns were handled. Many silenced weapons made the sounds of non-silenced guns of a completely different type. Of course, that probably won't impact the viewing experience for anyone who isn't interested in weapons. All in all, good for a single viewing, if you can catch it for free. I recommend it to fans of the typical action-flick and/or Dolph Lundgren. Not particularly good, but you could do a lot worse. 5/10