Another sub-par tale starring the man who used to be king of the violent B-movie, this television-movie-style offering tells the hackneyed tale of a man, framed for a heinous crime, pursued by sinister government agent types and betrayed by those closest to him as part of a government conspiracy. The tale has been done before, many times, and its simple to spot plot elements lifted from DIE HARD, THE X-FILES, even John Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 for one crazy moment. Unfortunately, STORM CATCHER is not as good as any of the films it seeks to emulate, instead landing squarely in the middle of the straight-to-video world: neither bad enough to be funny or good enough to be exciting.
The stultifying scenes of plot development are punctuated by the occasionally cheesy highlight (I love the overacted hospital interlude – "I need a doctor! I need a doctor!") but its not enough to make this worthwhile. To pad out the thin story, we get plenty of footage of planes (good enough) and lots of cheap and cheerful special effects. Unfortunately the action choreography is poor, Dolph doesn't even get to do any martial arts, and the shoot-outs lack impact, shying away from the bloodshed despite the high body count. Don't even get me started on the cast; I recognised three principle players, with the rest filling out incredible clichéd parts: the obnoxious crying child-in-danger, the black comic relief, the various faceless and personality-free bad guys. Kylie Bax wins awards for her chronic bad acting (absolutely hopeless) and shares the trait of having a silly name with most of her fellow cast members (you know you're in trouble the minute the credits roll).
Dolph is his usual dependable action self, looking good, and surprisingly he is the best actor in this particular film. The bad guy Robert Miano is revealed in an oh-so-surprising-plot-twist, and is recognisable from his role in dozens of such offerings, although I personally know him as the bad guy in the hit '90s video game PHANTASMAGORIA. One favourable character is Scully rip-off Agent Lock, played by no other than Kimberley Davies, who you may remember as the delectable Annalise Hartman in NEIGHBOURS. Yep, she's still looking as hot as ever. Once-promising director Anthony Hickox wastes his talents here and is far from his interesting beginnings – although he is amusing as the Fox Mulder-wannabe CIA agent.
The stultifying scenes of plot development are punctuated by the occasionally cheesy highlight (I love the overacted hospital interlude – "I need a doctor! I need a doctor!") but its not enough to make this worthwhile. To pad out the thin story, we get plenty of footage of planes (good enough) and lots of cheap and cheerful special effects. Unfortunately the action choreography is poor, Dolph doesn't even get to do any martial arts, and the shoot-outs lack impact, shying away from the bloodshed despite the high body count. Don't even get me started on the cast; I recognised three principle players, with the rest filling out incredible clichéd parts: the obnoxious crying child-in-danger, the black comic relief, the various faceless and personality-free bad guys. Kylie Bax wins awards for her chronic bad acting (absolutely hopeless) and shares the trait of having a silly name with most of her fellow cast members (you know you're in trouble the minute the credits roll).
Dolph is his usual dependable action self, looking good, and surprisingly he is the best actor in this particular film. The bad guy Robert Miano is revealed in an oh-so-surprising-plot-twist, and is recognisable from his role in dozens of such offerings, although I personally know him as the bad guy in the hit '90s video game PHANTASMAGORIA. One favourable character is Scully rip-off Agent Lock, played by no other than Kimberley Davies, who you may remember as the delectable Annalise Hartman in NEIGHBOURS. Yep, she's still looking as hot as ever. Once-promising director Anthony Hickox wastes his talents here and is far from his interesting beginnings – although he is amusing as the Fox Mulder-wannabe CIA agent.