Storm Catcher

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.

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.

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.***

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.