Visioni dal futuro

"Premonition" or "The Psychic" is a decent thriller. It's basically a variation on "The Dead Zone". Instead of Walken it's Casper Van Dien.

Van Dien plays Jack Barnes, a cop who gets killed in the line of duty. He's brought back to life and now he see visions of disasters. These visions somehow connect to a terrorist group.

Casper puts in a good performance. Everybody else is mediocre. The action scenes are well-filmed, but the special effects are cheesy. The helicopters and explosion at the end of the film looked too fake.

In the end: It's definitely not a bad film, if you watch it with low expectations.

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If you are trying to form an argument against Canadian content laws, using the movie "Premonition" to form your opinion would help greatly. What will quickly strike most viewers is how familiar the core story is, but that is just a minor problem compared to what really sinks the movie. It's written to be a really stupid telling of a familiar story, with characters constantly making idiotic decisions throughout. Also, there are a significant number of plot turns that are either not properly explained, or are not explained at all. All this bad writing probably explains why no one in the cast seems to be trying very hard, with actor Casper Van Dien giving the worst performance of all, a bad performance that generates no sympathy or heart at all. The direction is also hopeless, from letting Van Dien stay unshaven throughout despite being a police officer, to action sequences that lack excitement or comprehension. It also doesn't help that the entire enterprise looks really cheap and cheesy, from the ultra low budget cinematography to some awful special effects (as well as reusing some special effects footage from the superior B movie "Epicenter"). This movie is complete garbage, even for viewers who are especially undemanding with their choice of entertainment.

A low rent Canadian TV movie that explores the idea of psychic premonitions in much the same way as the likes of THE DEAD ZONE et al. This one brings nothing new to the concept, instead happy to retread old ground in its telling of a man who dies in a car accident, only to be brought back to life with a special talent for foreseeing the future.

Casper Van Dien has always been a likable hero, an actor who I've enjoyed seeing since STARSHIP TROOPERS. He's certainly no great shakes as an actor but he has charisma at least, which counts for something. He's the best thing about this otherwise shoddy film, putting plenty of effort into his leading role and handling himself well in the action stakes.

Sadly, PREMONITION as a whole is spoilt by a script which copies disaster scenarios from other movies - an earthquake, a train crash which virtually reprises the one in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE - and doesn't have much in the way of originality to it. In addition, the CGI effects of trains, helicopters, and the like are very poor indeed. It's not a terrible film, just a generally lacklustre one.

Well, the 2005 movie "Premonition" from writer Will Stewart and director Jonas Quastel is built upon a concept that is over-used in Hollywood movie history, and sadly then "Premonition" didn't really manage to cash in on the concept in a very fulfilling or entertaining manner.

The storyline told in "Premonition", as written by Will Stewart was just too mundane, too stereotypical and predictable. And that left nothing up for the audience to get thrilled about. Sure, the movie was adequately enough paced, but the lack of ups and down, or curves for that matter, along the ride made for a rather monotonous movie experience.

The characters in the movie were adequate, albeit somewhat generic, thanks to the writing. And again, the character concepts were things that had been seen before, so there was nothing grand to be experienced here. And that sort of put a dampening restriction upon the cast of actors and actresses.

The special effects in "Premonition", however, were bad. They were laughably bad, and they looked like something that was discarded from a 1990s computer game. It was just atrocious to look at, and such bad special effects just hinders a movie in its progress.

Sure, "Premonition" was watchable, but it was hardly a memorable experience, and ultimately it was a less than mediocre movie as a whole. My rating of director Jonas Quastel's 2005 movie lands on a four out of ten stars.

a nuclear terrorist plot behind a back-from-the-dead-visions wrapper; terrible acting with one of those casts consisting of no one you have ever seen before other than the top 2 or 3 folks in the billing; no reality to the actions of the actors in the plot, with the FBI not bothering to follow up on any clues or taking seriously any information given them; the wife limited to a long series of "Oh, Jack.." lines; the kid existing for the sole purpose of being put in danger at just the right moment;a Grade C made-for-2am effort; unlike some bad movies, you realize from the very beginning that this will never start to become interesting; you have to wonder why they bothered with this.