Storm Catcher

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Strangely reminiscent of his earlier feature The Peacekeeper in a way,Storm Catcher is Dolph Lundgren's most solid,effective film of late.Directed with assured self style by Warlock helmer Anthony Hickox (who also stars inspiringly enough),this involvingly blends in impressive action scenes,character development and story telling to culminate into a thouroughly entertaining whole.The good,clean fun element of the story however,is ruined by some wanternly unnecessary bad language and bloodshed,which provide cactus stings in the back.Another funny query is if the bad guys went around America stealing company vans to perform their deeds.We see them in an ice cream van and what looks like a furniture company van.Why on earth would members of the milatary need to get themselves mobile in them?Still,it's near impossible to find an action film that doesn't have at least a trace of implausibilaty and weirdness in it.And speaking of which ,look out for Neighbour's Annalese Kimberly Davies as one of two extremely weird FBI agents who follow all the important characters around.***

When you hear the name Dolph Lundgren, you rarely think of quality films. I can't off the top of my head name one single good film I've seen him in. However, you can usually count on him being a good lead in the typical more-Braun-than-brain action-flick. This film is a tad bit uneven, but it doesn't deserve its low rating and bad rep. The plot is not original, but the twists are fairly good(I didn't see them coming, at least) and the pacing is above par for the genre. The acting is a bit below average in some scenes, but it's mostly satisfactory. The characters are pretty much one-note and underdeveloped. The cinematography is stylish, but there are times when it's a bit overdone(you know how, sometimes when you watch a film, you're wondering if the cameraman has fallen asleep? There were times during this where I wondered if the cameraman was sober). The director uses slow-motion a bit too often, particularly during action scenes. To counter that, however, there's some very good camera-movement in some of the action scenes as well. The one-liners get to be a bit over the top in some parts of the film. The action is usually intense, but a bit too often it's unrealistic, to the point where it becomes completely unbelievable(a goon's gun running out of ammo in a half a second burst, for example). The film managed to do something quite unusual for the genre, namely surprise me several times. I thought on more than one occasion that I had figured out exactly what was going to happen next, but the film surprised me. Something that bothered me(being a weapons enthusiast) was the amateurish way the guns were handled. Many silenced weapons made the sounds of non-silenced guns of a completely different type. Of course, that probably won't impact the viewing experience for anyone who isn't interested in weapons. All in all, good for a single viewing, if you can catch it for free. I recommend it to fans of the typical action-flick and/or Dolph Lundgren. Not particularly good, but you could do a lot worse. 5/10

I have to say that this movie gets an "A" for effort for at least trying to be a good action movie. And although on some points it fails to deliver, it is still however an entertaining action movie. As a said above there are a few things that aren't that good about this movie. There are only really too things that stand out to me:

1- The needless graphic, and sometimes slow motion, violence. We don't need a closeup, slow-motion shot of a guy spitting blood just to make the movie better.

2- Some of the camera angles- In some of the more "dramatic" scenes in the movie, the camera tends to have a life of its own and seem to shake quite violently. This is so bad that you can barely see what is happening in the scene and it ruins it. Another thing is the excessive use of slow-motion. Anthony Hickox, as you will notice, is no John Woo. Except for one scene I can think of, this type of filming doesn't work in the movie.

Apart from that this movie is rather entertaining and, aside from the usual B-Movie plot-holes and bad acting, can provide a decent nights entertainment. I give a 6/10 purely on entertainment value alone.

PS: Notice how in one shot of the StormCatcher, one of the control panels looks somewhat like a control panel from The Enterprise? See if you can spot it at the beginning of the film.

Okay yet another mediocre Dolph movie. I hear ya, but at least it's not Fallen Knight (AKA: The Minion). This time around Lundgren turns in a good, but predictable performance as a run of the mill character Major Jack Holloway. Who's a test pilot for the military's top secret warplane "The Storm Catcher" hence the movie's title.

What happens to the plane? Well of course it's stolen and he's framed for everything. Is there a conspiracy theory lodged somewhere in Storm Catcher? Yep. Do they use his wife and daughter as leverage to get him to do what they want? Yep. That itself isn't so bad they are typical clichés of the genre. It's the general inept story and more stupid characters than I'd like to count. Like two CIA agents named Lock & Load.

Storm Catcher is yet another undistinguishable action flick with predictability written all over it. It's a cheapie thru and thru (check out the usual assortment of stock footage), but somehow comes out looking half decent. Lundgren is decent here, but that doesn't allow it to rise over the giant heap of mediocre action flicks on the market as it is. You've seen this before, you've probably seen it done better.

There is nothing wrong with the plot itself, but the actors/actresses can't really carry the heavy load of bringing the thin dialogue to the level expected for a movie with this magnitude.

The tear-jerker scenes in Storm Catcher (there are more than one would think) doesn't really do the job either.

Since i myself like Dolph Lundgren as an actor and was looking forward to some real action, i was disappointed with this movie. Storm Catcher lost it's momentum after only a few minutes, and wasn't able to really draw my attention until close to the end.

There are better action movies around, although Lundgren's performance was pretty good compared to some of his older ones.