Storm Catcher

There is nothing wrong with the plot itself, but the actors/actresses can't really carry the heavy load of bringing the thin dialogue to the level expected for a movie with this magnitude.

The tear-jerker scenes in Storm Catcher (there are more than one would think) doesn't really do the job either.

Since i myself like Dolph Lundgren as an actor and was looking forward to some real action, i was disappointed with this movie. Storm Catcher lost it's momentum after only a few minutes, and wasn't able to really draw my attention until close to the end.

There are better action movies around, although Lundgren's performance was pretty good compared to some of his older ones.

Major Jack Holloway is the pilot of a revolutionary new fighter jet that is totally invisible to all forms of radar when it goes into stealth mode. When ever someone steals the jet, they frame him for the crime and kidnap his family in order to force him to fly it (he being the only person able to). However Holloway escapes from the group and enlists the help of technical wizard Sparks Johnson to out smart the group.

I'm not a big Lundgren fan but I'll always give his movies a go when they come on TV as I tend to hope that they will at least give me some cheap thrills as an average action movie. This film was a major disappointment in many ways. First of all the plot is not exactly clever but it hasn't been developed well enough to make it plausible, it feels like they wrote it with 8 key scenes in mind but were unable to make good links between them – hence we have bad guys simply bursting into Holloway's home etc. It all feels very bitty and this also affects any excitement or tension it may have been able to have – it simply doesn't flow as a film. In fact it is hardly developed at all when the climax occurs – I had to wonder about the extent of the chief villain's plan, his claims were grand on a global scale but we had seen no evidence of the might he would need to pull it off, all I'd seen was a few guys who had been mostly dispatched by Holloway!

However a bad plot and poor development could easily describe many average action movie filling up the late night TV schedules, but this one has other flaws. The direction is indicative of the whole film – rushed, untidy and uncaring. The camera swings around wildly, but not like is the fashion with NYPD Blue or H:LOTS but really wildly so that the mildest scenes are supposed to feel exciting and frantic – they don't. The production values feel cheap with few special effects and al aerial stuff clearly stock footage. The most laughable thing (spotted as well by another reviewer) was when the unit came for Holloway's family and burst through his windows you could see the fake silencers on the toy guns bending all over the place! This is one example but it was full of cheap touches that gave me the overall impression that they just wanted to get the film finished and damn the quality.

The acting is poor at best. Lundgren is poor as he clearly has no character and has been given no direction and is thus not involved with his character. Therefore he seems relaxed in the plane (despite the seriousness of the situation on the ground) and also doesn't even convince when cheering his daughter on at a football game. Only in the fight scenes (of which there are few) does he seem to be trying and even then it's temporary. Clark is a typical `comedy black sidekick' and just exactly what he has seen done in other films before and just mugs his way through. Bax is annoyingly wooden as Holloway's wife and has a grating cut glass English accent which I can only assume the casting crew thought would `add colour' to the film. Miano is a really poor villain and never gets even to the standard of average thrillers. His character has no teeth and I never really saw his plan as realistic or something that couldn't be easily overcome – his failure to be a threat really knocked whatever small amount of interest I still had out of me.

Overall even people who look forward to the next Lundgren film will be disappointed with this. In every area it feels cheap and rushed – it is a product rather than a film. I had to wonder why I was bothering to watch this when it was so clear that everyone involved had put so little effort into this. Poor even by Lundgren's low standards.

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

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Strangely reminiscent of his earlier feature The Peacekeeper in a way,Storm Catcher is Dolph Lundgren's most solid,effective film of late.Directed with assured self style by Warlock helmer Anthony Hickox (who also stars inspiringly enough),this involvingly blends in impressive action scenes,character development and story telling to culminate into a thouroughly entertaining whole.The good,clean fun element of the story however,is ruined by some wanternly unnecessary bad language and bloodshed,which provide cactus stings in the back.Another funny query is if the bad guys went around America stealing company vans to perform their deeds.We see them in an ice cream van and what looks like a furniture company van.Why on earth would members of the milatary need to get themselves mobile in them?Still,it's near impossible to find an action film that doesn't have at least a trace of implausibilaty and weirdness in it.And speaking of which ,look out for Neighbour's Annalese Kimberly Davies as one of two extremely weird FBI agents who follow all the important characters around.***

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.