Tempête de feu

Although I have been a firefighter for 23 years, I make it a point to not be overly critical when the technical "advisors" drop the ball as they so often have (even on Backdraft and Ladder 49). However, the absolute disregard for any reasonable correctness in this abomination is unforgivable.

But the firefighting aspects aside, this movie to date stands alone as the worst that I have ever seen. Ever. I accept some of the blame for not ejecting the thing but it was like a train wreck. I could not look away.

As we all can attest, some movies by virtue of their awfulness can be fun. (i.e. Ed Wood's side-splitting "Plan-9 From Outer Space") This was not one of them. "Ablaze" is one of the many Hollywood debacles that must beg the question, "where do they get the money?".

just to warn everyone how bad this "film" is. Acting, directing, make up, script... I bet even the food served to the cast and crew on set made everyone sick.

The main plot and all of the sub plots suck. Nothing is logical, scenes are re-used, and mistakes are everywhere. Here are some examples from the first 30 minutes of the film:

The bad guys "get away" car loses its' front bumper in a crash and then regains it. The power cord leading to the rotating red light on top of the cop car switches from inside to outside the door frame in milliseconds.

The actor in the first fire stunt is so covered with protective gel he looks like "grease man." A ranging fire starts inside a bedroom so fast that only gallons of gasoline could have been responsible. A plastic toy kangaroo survives the blazing inferno for at least 10 minutes while only inches from the flames. The "firemen" all run into the inferno without masks, oxygen, or even gloves. Then they stroll about perfectly upright throughout the blazing structure as without a care in the world. One actor falls down and barely bumps his head and then everyone expects him to die. Which he does, but only after a twenty minute death bed confession.

It goes on and on and on. See how many you can spot.

So bad it is almost funny

I have to turn off the TV and go to work now, thank God.

Mike

Not only did they lift scenes from City on Fire but the opening chase sequence was lifted from the Bruce Willis movie Striking Distance!

This movie was probably the worst movie I have seen.

This movie belongs in the bargain bin at Wal Mart, ummm... better yet it belongs in the trash.

This movie is a page out of movie history, it first came out as 'Striking distance' the cop car chase scene in the beginning is exactly the same as the chase scene in 'Striking distance' complete with the cars rolling down the embankment at the end of the chase (I thought the bad guy was going to get out and shoot Ice T). Oh by the way, what happens to Ice T later on in the movie? . Then as the movie progresses, it turns into 'City on fire' a disastrous disaster movie from 1979 complete with scenes right out of 'City of fire'. I mean the actual scenes in 'City on fire' were cut and pasted into 'Ablaze'. Like the scene where the nurse opens the closet door and gets smoked. I wonder how they got away with that? I was waiting for Shelly Winters to make a cameo. (They could of cut and pasted her to!). What a Bomb!

Absolutely terrible. How can abominations like this ever be made? A decent premise (city put in danger by big corporation, heroically saved by firefighters), but an absolute cliche ridden script of the worst order, hammy acting by a cast who don't seem to know whether to play it for laughs, and very cheap and repetitive special effects. Must have been a stuntmans hog heaven, because we get to see lots of people wandering around on fire and falling from buildings for no good reason. Ice-T, despite taking second billing, appears only for about a minute at the start and a minute at the end. Tom Arnold picks up his cheque by sleepwalking through his role, and the rest of the cast must have been desperate for work and are desperately under rehearsed or just unfamiliar with the script.

You know something is badly wrong when in the intro scene, a man sets on fire by the side of an extremely large lake, yet prefers to wander around going 'argh, argh' rather than THROWING HIMSELF IN THE LAKE! The final climactic scene is frankly laughable - not even 'good in a bad way' as people make mistakes that they simply wouldn't do in real life (walking around slowly and having a look at the pretty fires rather than running like hell). Do yourself a favour and avoid this turkey.