Heatstroke

For DB Sweeney, it must have been quite a comedown from FIRE IN THE SKY to this. Sweeney, who once showed promise as a light leading man, here portrays a cardboard military guy hot on the trail of an killer E.T. in Hawaii. Sweeney and his crew race around in various Jeeps and small SUVs, while the badly animated creature hops here and there, doing in one person after another. Sweeney ends up crossing paths with a model (McKellar) who teaming up with him in pursuit of the monster. She's the eye candy, folks. By the way, the alien in this could just as easily have been a raptor, for all it's worth. Ah well, I'm sure cast and crew had a good time shooting in Hawaii.

D.B. Sweeney is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Put him in scenes that involve a brawl or (multiple) interactions with Danica McKellar, and it looks and feels awkward. Otherwise, the story is cookie cutter stupidity, and the creatures are only marginally better than those in rubber suits.

This one pulls out several stock monster movie plot devices, but yet manages to entertain if you take it at face value. You want vicious, blood thirsty aliens sneaking around on a remote island? You got it, along with some pretty-girl potential victims, trigger-happy marines who feed the critters with dozens of rounds of ammunition, people who whine about monster legends, the usual dumb skeptics, plus some beautiful south Pacific island shots.

Oh, and the creatures themselves. They're designed creepy enough (as usual, a hybrid of insect and human characteristics), but the director falls into the temptation of showing them way too early. Having them lurking in shadows, brushing plants, their brutal bloody attacks with unexpected deadly powers would have made them menacing; using some of their unusual powers in a mysterious way rather than showing these skills would have made them menacing enough. The unseen terror is usually scarier and more intimidating than seeing a fake looking CGI monster.

Danika McKellar is wasted on a shallow stereotyped character that you learn little about. She makes the most of what little the script offers, but I wish somebody would offer her some better roles.

The story is really just a series of encounters with the aliens, sometimes they croak an Earthling, sometimes the Earthling gets them first. Very little of the plot the creatures are hatching is developed. Some scenes are flat out stupid, such as the naive-scientist-trying-to-communicate-with-the-alien-race cliché scene. The approach of the dummy is so childlike, I thought she was going to say, "Polly want a cracker? Dat's a good alien!" any second. And the outcome is so obvious as to be comical.

Still, with all these shortcomings, the film never tries to be more than the fast food sci-fi/horror that it is, and just has a good time with its action. Good enough for a laugh on a rainy afternoon when you have nothing else to do.

Maybe that's what they attempted, an exercise for actors to show they had the acting skill to speak the worst lines that could be written, and make those lines passable.

I wondered first if it was poor actors ad libbing, which I've seen in Louisville productions, bot "no". You can see every actor and actress struggling with clumsy lines. That can't be coincidence.

So the plot? Sci fi creatures killing vulnerable people and people having dreams. And aversion of X files even dumber than X Files (which was a hack TV series about the department of defense hiding the existence of aliens from the public so they couldn't ask for a bigger budget at appropriations time. Yes, this plot is even dumber) How do you get dumber than a government branch trying to hide the existence of something that would grant them a bigger budget? By elaborating even more on what was dumber about X Files. That people wouldn't want aliens.

There's even an expository line where a lady scientist claims she wanted to believe in God and that she didn't want to believe in aliens, because she believed God made humans in his own image.

Said no one ever.

Because no one wants to believe that. People want to believe in aliens. We have proof of this. The IMDB top 250 presently has 8 movies dealing with outer space. All 8 of those contain aliens. That's what people want. Even I want that. I'm not going to watch an outer space movie sci fi movie with no aliens. Rarely.

Is there an exception? For me, SILENT RUNNING and OUTLAND are about it. And neither are in the top 250. Why? People want aliens!

The writing is definitive of "expository". But I don't consider it totally "contrived". The only "contrived" part is the failure of the military in hunting the creatures. Kind of a "groaner" scene there.

I'll give it points for being an "exercise" for actors. I truly believe that is what this is. An exercise where actors and actresses weren't allowed to alter lines, and instead try to make something of the ridiculous script before them.

Some SyFy originals are tolerable, but most are bad to just terrible. Heastroke for me was not bad enough to be terrible, but it was an overall lame movie. The scenery is pretty good though, and while she has a very shallow character Danika McKellar is beautiful and quite appealing. However, the special effects look very fake, and are not helped by the choppy editing. The music is not awful as such, but is very forgettable within minutes of watching the film, and the direction has little sense of vitality. The script is often flat and too corny, while the characters are cardboard and shallow especially the villains and the story reads more of a series of encounters that are mostly predictable and stupid. The ending is contrived and unintentionally comical. Other than McKellar the rest of the acting doesn't make an impression. DB Sweeney struggles with a very clichéd role, and it is also one that requires more than his light leading man charisma, which makes him a bland lead really. Overall, I've seen worse, but Heatstroke for my tastes was lame. 3/10 Bethany Cox