Crystal Inferno

Coming over as a Video on Demand Dwayne Johnson Skyscraper ripoff.

Disaster hits a skyscraper after the developers cut corners on safety.

Divorcing couple Brianna (Claire Forlani) and Tom (Jamie Barber) find themselves having to rescue their children who sneaked in after coming across some evidence that their mum was not cheating.

The kids find themselves trapped as a fire rages throughout the building. It is left to Brianna to turn into an action woman.

Outside of the main leads the acting is weak. The special effects look cheap, although there are one or two nice shots despite the low budget.

The movie is merely functional without much of a story. The dialogue is bad.

Well I must admit to not being familiar with "Crystal Inferno" (or "Inferno: Skyscraper Escape") prior to stumbling upon it by blind luck. And I am a sucker for disaster movies, so of course I took the time and effort to sit down and watch this 2017 movie.

I will say that it was actually better than I had hoped for, because the vast majority of disaster movies available are just downright horrible and mauled by having grotesquely awful CGI. Luckily the was only so much CGI in "Crystal Inferno" that it didn't really matter that it looked fake sometimes. You could look past that, because the movie was not relying heavily on having a spectacular special effect to blow the audience away. I doubt they would have had the funds for that, but that is another issue.

"Crystal Inferno" is based more on being a story-driven movie that focuses on the characters and not having blazing special effects to make the audience go "oooh" and "aaah". As for the story, well it was entertaining enough actually, albeit very, very predictable and generic.

It should be said that "Crystal Inferno" has TV movie written all over it.

This is not among the worst of disaster movies that I have seen, and it is actually worth the time if you have an hour and a half to spare and got nothing preceding on the menu.

The story lacks originality and follows well established tropes with villainous corporate types, wholesome archetypes and just-add-wickedness mayhem. A real Syfy ready summer flick. The one positive and strong exception to this slightly mundane premise is the female lead of Supergirl/Wonder Woman heroine-ness of Claire Forlani'mother/professional character. Sadly the miss use of Jamie Bamber was a obvious disappointment, to equal Forlani.

The special effects are the typical display of scaled-down practical tricks that one expects from this level of disaster movie blended with lower budgeted CGI effects. This doesn't mean that the film is bad or cheap, just didn't want to equate "Inferno: Skyscraper Escape" to the Syfy channel, but yeah this one would work beautifully on their lineup. The effect have ample quality and impact with only a mild drop in CGI quality.

Overall the movie gives a straight-to-Redbox, low budget performance that works as far as action entertainment value for fans of microbudget disaster/action flicks. There is a strong female lead that plays to the heart of the story. There is some superbad acting and some melodrama that falls flat but for what it is, "Inferno: Skyscraper Escape" is a decent flick that should satisfy fans of this type film.

I have been a fan of the disaster movie genre ever since I saw 'The Towering Inferno' in the cinema back in the day. And since then every disaster movie seems to follow the same formula. A couple, children, a builder etc. Having said that I thought the strain between the couple was well set up. I can accept the not so stellar special effects I can even take dodgy acting but please change the formula re children.

Acting is straight out of stage-school. Wooden and rigid.

The plot is poor. The dialogue/script is very, very poor. This isn't even TV movie quality.

How on earth did Claire Forlani fall from Meet Joe Black to this rubbish? Avoid this. Don't waste 93 minutes of your life.

EDIT: I wrote after having watched the first 20-25 minutes. I wish I could now give it a lower score, as the film just got progressively worse... What Claire Forlani's character did in the lift shaft at about 55 mins is simply ludicrous. The acting surrounding an aerial accident a bit later is even worse.

I wish I could unwatch this diatribe.