Path of Destruction

On a large oil rig platform, worth $14 million, many important people work. Attractive investigative reporter Danica McKellar (as Katherine Stern) is there, looking to prove oil companies dump chemical wastes. She is close to cracking the case when a horrible incident releases a black fuzz. The black fuzz begins killing workers and triggers a fire. Although she is hit hard on the forehead by a hook, Ms. McKellar is one of the few survivors. In the hospital with a white bandage on her forehead, McKellar realizes the black fuzz was a shady incident; it soon becomes a huge black cloud. Due to being so smart, McKellar is now hunted by oil executives...

McKellar escapes from the hospital and seeks help from attractive blond Chris Pratt (as Nathan S. McCain). The duo must try to escape from the clutches of oil executive David Keith (as Roy Stark) and save the world from the black cloud, which is causing weather to run amok all over the planet. Director Stephen Furst (as Louie Myman) serves double duty as Mr. Pratt's unlikely playboy pal. Direction and quick editing provide a little TV Movie excitement during the times when our heroine is on the run, but the nasty cloud is not exciting. There isn't much you can do when your monster special effects are a fuzzy black cloud and a shaky camera.

*** Path of Destruction (9/24/05) Stephen Furst ~ Danica McKellar, Chris Pratt, David Keith, Stephen Furst

Some weird things that look like a swarm of black CGI marks try to take over the world. An accident releases them at some off-shore drilling place which they wreck, and then they wander off to destroy more things.

Beautiful Danika McKellar is the most memorable part of the movie. Not only is she incredibly cute, but her acting is top notch in spite of the plot-hole ridden script. She's a journalist who happened to be at the site of the first accident, and apparently there's some icky evil government plot behind the creatures, so a bunch of thugs everywhere are after her. There are numerous clichés of this kind thrown around, but there are a few spots of action that almost make sense in this thing.

The science is whack. The things destroy stuff in ways that are bizarre and inconsistent. The way the heroes try to combat the things is almost comical. If you watch this as a joke in an MST3K sort of way, it can be entertaining on that basis. I just hope Danika gets some better roles in the future.

Okay, okay...I know my summary says it all. Another Sci Fi Channel "original." Well, wait just a minute folks; this one actually seems to have a grain of originality.

I'm afraid the nanotechnology concept is where it ends, though. Bad acting. Horrible CGI. Ridiculous plot twists. Starring Winnie and directed by Flounder.

But this one is so horribly bad, folks, that it's entertaining. We're not talking PLAN 9 bad, but pretty close. Another reviewer indicated that this may have been intentional, but I'm not buying it. For those of you that enjoy this kind of thing, buy some beer, turn off your mind, relax and float down stream.

The comments from the honorable member from California pretty much sum this movie up, except he missed the most important factor, Danica McKellar. With Danica in the movie, it made it all worthwhile. Heck, I have seen far worse movies with worse actors than this movie. B_Movies are just that, b movies and should be taken with a grain of salt, not torn apart for the lack of technical goodies. Heaven knows we have enough of those already. As for me, I hope it makes it to DVD. The last time I checked Amazon, it wasn't there, not yet anyway. Fans of Danica, let your voices be heard, demand this one make it to DVD. To be fair, it does fall a little short in areas, but good old David is making an effort, but he seems to be doing a lot of bad films, also playing the bad guy way too much. Michael Cory Davis does a good job with what he was handed to work with. Watch with an open mind is all I can.

Although it looks like he did only 2 or 3 days of work on this utter shlockfest of a Sci-Fi Channel piece of junk, poor David Keith has his name attached to this garbage. At least he's working and drawing a check, but it's a long way from the Brubaker days ...

This sci-fi mess should be required viewing for all films students: as an example of what a film looks like when things go completely wrong. The production design is all but nonexistent, the direction is sloppy and terrible at the same time, the acting is as bad as it gets, and the script sounds like an 11th grade English class did it as a week-long project, an hour at a time over five days.

I'm still waiting for the David Keith / Keith David co-starrer. These are two good actors when they get good material, and they've suffered long enough in the B-movie realm. Tarantino, are you listening?