Blast

It seemed like a normal "Die Hard" theme movie; terrorists take the Atlanta female swim team hostage and the only one who can save them is the ex-athlete turned janitor Jack Bryant. It also gets personal for Jack when one of the hostages is his wife. I mean his background isn't like the other ones (he not a ex-cop, ex-army, ex-FBI etc.), but he still a bad*ss! The action scenes were pretty good and I've seen worse ones. This one called "Skyscraper" was a really bad "Die Hard" theme and I think this one did a better job in my option of it. I think this was pretty good and I would watch it again.

Flat actionner with terrorists taking over a lesuire complex for some odd reason taking girls as hostages with only the aikido-fighting janitor to save them all.

There is an implied feeling of the girls being "raped" by the terrorists, but they really aren't. The terrorists demands are silly and flat. The whole film is flat.

Overall: 0/10 Totally un-memorable. And that's a good thing.

At the time of the Atlanta Olympics the FBI stopped a potential terrorist attack, this film is what might have happened if they hadn't. Terrorist plant bombs all over the Olympic buildings and take the USA women's swimming team hostage. However a janitor is left inside who happens to have weapons training and whose ex-wife is on the swimming team staff. He begins to evade and kill them as the clock ticks.

This is laziness itself. The film tries to give itself a base to work from by setting itself in reality and basing itself on what `might' have happened. Let me tell you - this wouldn't have happen, even if the terrorists attack had happen it wouldn't have been like this! The story is stupid - `Die Hard in a swimming pool', great. I wonder is John McTiernan ever saw this if he would regret making Die Hard and inspiring so many rubbish videos. The story is absurd and just wants some shooting and fighting - for example, Bryant gets two guns, does he use the ammo carefully? No - he runs into a room, fires all his bullets, hits nothing, throws the guns away and legs it! This is no Die Hard. And if you think this isn't stupid then the terrible, terrible finale will prove it. It will have you roaring with laughter - it includes an exploding wheelchair, a walking stick that doubles as a samurai sword, a disabled man who can't walk but can do martial arts moves and swim and some terrible effects. It really is that bad…..

Ashby is a bad version of Willis. He runs round in a sweaty, dirty white tee-shirt with blood stains but manages to be totally without charisma. I couldn't believe how poor he was here. Of course, he can't take the prize for worst performance. Divoff tries with a cheap version of Rickman, his accent never settles in one place and is really just a rent-a-thug role. However the prize for worst goes to Hauer in a bad haircut as a terrorist expert from Interpol, however he does set a great example for disabled people everywhere by overcoming disability to physically fight the baddie - stupid!

Overall, words cannot describe how bad this film is. In every area it is tacky and nasty. Please - if you like this - get Die Hard on video and watch how it should be done. Trash - 2 out of 10.

(1) hire out your local family swimming baths for the day

(2) hire a bunch of pretend weapons, some balaclavas, and a bank of CCTV monitors

(3) get 30 random people off the street and divide them into 3 groups. Tell one group they'll be the terrorists, one group they'll be the swimmers/victims, and one group they'll be the cops.

(4) randomly walk among the groups and film them doing whatever they want for a couple of hours, then edit the footage down to about 90 mins

(5) find Rutger Hauer, put him in a small dark room and film him mumbling to himself for a while. Add that to the footage you got in step (4)

(6) get some generic 'important' sounding backing music with plenty of orchestral creschendos and marching drums, and play it non-stop over the whole thing.

et voila, your very own Blast. Enjoy!

With "Blast", Albert Pyun presents us with his B-movie version of the "Die Hard" scenario. Aside from the stop-motion fighting sequences and familiar plot elements - even down to the hero's ex-wife being the terrorist's last hostage - the movie also featured deflated performances from Andrew Divoff and Rutger Hauer. Even as the leader of the terrorists, Divoff is given very little to say and even less to do. Walking fast and tough down hallways seems to be his character's primary ability. And what was with Hauer's legs having been blown off? Wow - not since Gary Sinise in "Forrest Gump" have I seen such a convincing leg amputee.

Tim Thomerson looked like he was trying his best to be invisible in his role as the police chief who only appears on a single set. And if you've got a keen eye, you can spot pre-American Pie and pre-implants Shannon Elizabeth as one of the swimteam hostages. Other than that, a couple bad computer animated explosions, bad guys who have the hero at point-blank range yet still wait for him to escape to the other side of a locked door, a seemingly unkillable hero, and not-so-subtle characterisations make "Blast" another serving from Pyun that one should definitely miss.