Blast

It seemed like a normal "Die Hard" theme movie; terrorists take the Atlanta female swim team hostage and the only one who can save them is the ex-athlete turned janitor Jack Bryant. It also gets personal for Jack when one of the hostages is his wife. I mean his background isn't like the other ones (he not a ex-cop, ex-army, ex-FBI etc.), but he still a bad*ss! The action scenes were pretty good and I've seen worse ones. This one called "Skyscraper" was a really bad "Die Hard" theme and I think this one did a better job in my option of it. I think this was pretty good and I would watch it again.

With "Blast", Albert Pyun presents us with his B-movie version of the "Die Hard" scenario. Aside from the stop-motion fighting sequences and familiar plot elements - even down to the hero's ex-wife being the terrorist's last hostage - the movie also featured deflated performances from Andrew Divoff and Rutger Hauer. Even as the leader of the terrorists, Divoff is given very little to say and even less to do. Walking fast and tough down hallways seems to be his character's primary ability. And what was with Hauer's legs having been blown off? Wow - not since Gary Sinise in "Forrest Gump" have I seen such a convincing leg amputee.

Tim Thomerson looked like he was trying his best to be invisible in his role as the police chief who only appears on a single set. And if you've got a keen eye, you can spot pre-American Pie and pre-implants Shannon Elizabeth as one of the swimteam hostages. Other than that, a couple bad computer animated explosions, bad guys who have the hero at point-blank range yet still wait for him to escape to the other side of a locked door, a seemingly unkillable hero, and not-so-subtle characterisations make "Blast" another serving from Pyun that one should definitely miss.

Linden Ashby stars as a janitor (Okay this was done in Virtual Assassin and Nightsiege:Project Shadowchaser II, Enough with the kung fu janitors who used to be secret service agents or something!) who is an ex-secret service agent who protects the swim-team from terrorists looking to nuke the U.S (What terrorists aren't?) and of course our hero wades through the disposable terrorists with the help of a wheelchair bound Rutger Hauer. The cast alone shows promise; Linden Ashby, Rutger Hauer, Thom Mathews and Andrew Divoff. However their efforts are in vain as Pyun never figures out how to use them effectively. Mathews in particular is a good martial artist, so why not have him as one of the henchman, ensuring us a fight sequence between Mathews and Ashby. I mean it would be better then seeing him like a prissy swim coach. Blast however makes the worst mistake of being just plain tedious. Aside from the ridiculous finale that sees Rutger Hauer as a sword wielding paraplegic, Blast is the worst type of B.movie a brainless bore with no redeeming value. Still, Rutger Hauer's presence saves this from my lowest rating possible.

* out of 4-(Bad)

(1) hire out your local family swimming baths for the day

(2) hire a bunch of pretend weapons, some balaclavas, and a bank of CCTV monitors

(3) get 30 random people off the street and divide them into 3 groups. Tell one group they'll be the terrorists, one group they'll be the swimmers/victims, and one group they'll be the cops.

(4) randomly walk among the groups and film them doing whatever they want for a couple of hours, then edit the footage down to about 90 mins

(5) find Rutger Hauer, put him in a small dark room and film him mumbling to himself for a while. Add that to the footage you got in step (4)

(6) get some generic 'important' sounding backing music with plenty of orchestral creschendos and marching drums, and play it non-stop over the whole thing.

et voila, your very own Blast. Enjoy!

Not sure if I got the spelling correct, but it's Italian for "half-and-half." *Warning: spoilers ahead.* Sure; it's a rip-off of the "DIE HARD" trilogy. And, truth to tell, Janitor Jack doesn't get _any_ guidance from Agent Leo until the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the film. Furthermore, if I had been the director, I would have had the swimteam extras with the bathing caps be among the casualties. I mean, they kept them on through the whole movie!! What real-life hostages would've done that? But, at least, they provided _some_ explanation for why the hero knew martial arts. The very similar "SUDDEN DEATH" obviously had a bigger budget. And, yet, they _never_ explained how Van Damme's character (a divorced fire marshal) was so proficient at hand-to-hand combat! So, where I give "SUDDEN DEATH" two stars, I give "BLAST" half a star more.