Nature Unleashed: Avalanche

Two brothers from the States run a snowmobile business in a Russian ski town. One loves the daughter of a gentleman who runs the resort, the other has a yen for a touchy geologist. But, at present, biz is not great and romance is not budding. All too soon, the geologist declares that there should be no snowmobiling, as the conditions are ripe for an avalanche. Not only that, she says the ski resort should never have been built in this area, for it will most likely be perpetually dangerous to natural disaster! Of course, no one likes this announcement, for those making money on snowy activities are not ready to pull up stakes. Therefore, contention ensues. No surprise, then, when the big avalanche does come roaring down the slopes and some folks are forces to enter a snow cave to wait out a rescue. Will it arrive? This is a fairly horrid film, except for the lovely scenery. The acting is below average, the script is totally implausible and the direction is lame. Yet, for those who realize most disaster films are not magically believable, some viewers may opt to get this one. As some of the bad guys get their due, the calamity breeds romance among the young and the snowy setting is gorgeous, what's not to love, er, like, er tolerate for an evening?

Nature Unleashed: Avalanche is one of those films that you can occasionally see playing on the Syfy channel at around 2 AM, rounding out another marathon of disaster (both figuratively and literally) movies. If you have trouble sleeping at night, and happen to be up whenever this flick is playing, give it a watch, and I can almost guarantee that you'll soon be out for the night.

Not to say that NU:A doesn't have moments of sporadic entertainment (especially since the titular menace behaves in an eerily similar fashion as the "sentient" tornadoes in the movie Twister), it's just that the package as a whole is bland and uninteresting, much like the snow-covered wastes that make up most of the scenery. Everything you could expect from a made-for-TV natural catastrophe movie is present and accounted for, so much so that even a few minor tweaks here-and-there still render it indistinguishable from the usual early Sunday-morning drivel.

I could go on about the characters and plot, but it just seems kinda moot. Brothers Thom and Jock run a snowmobile rental service in Russia's Ural Mountains, a greedy developer is building a hotel on an unstable slope, and the pleas of a scarred female scientist fall on deaf and money-blinded ears, until disaster strikes! Throw in a few romantic subplots and useless fodder characters, and you get the drill.

NU:A is not a terrible movie, just a very boring one. It's stoically serviceable in every way, but hardly entertaining. If you watch it every night, you'll never have trouble getting to sleep again.

But it gets the job done.

A bunch of characters including two brothers, the younger brother's lover, her father the developer, and an avalanche watcher start to realize a nearby peak is about to come crashing down. Trying to find a way to keep everyone safe while maintaining profit, all while overcoming their own inner drama and differences, keeps them busy for roughly an hour and a half. We get to tag along too.

It basically has mediocre dialog, mediocre directing and editing, some pretty good photography, and bad acting, but it's the story that keeps this little experience interesting. In general, it's a somewhat tense countdown while the weight of the mountain starts burdening the souls of all involved. Can't say it was that bad.

Obviously a big difficulty was keeping it going with limited materials, being that a few shots/ideas are re-used several times. It also has a pretty useless side-story about the developer's evil business partner that frankly only worked to use up space, then climaxed in a pretty campy shot that I won't give away. But the fact that it even had side-plots and backstory and character development is kind of commendable for the type of movie it was. So there we go. Entertainment fun-fest and all that.

--PolarisDiB

This film essentially begins somewhere in Eastern Europe with two brothers named "Thom Cussler" (Adam Croasdell) and "Jock Cussler" (Andrew Lee Potts) acting as guides for a couple of tourists who have rented snowmobiles from them. Although Thom warns the tourists not to travel too far up a glacier that looms above a local ski resort, one of them does anyway and causes an avalanche to come barreling into the small town. Fortunately, although there is some damage done, nobody is seriously injured or killed. Even so both Thom and Jock are blamed by the local villagers for their reckless actions. Meanwhile, a businessman by the name of "Mr. Alkin" (Steven Grives) is in the process of building a large hotel there and he is sparing no effort to make sure it is safe and sturdy. The problem is that his financial manager known simply as "Rogov" (Valentin Ganev) has acquired money for the project from a criminal element and they insist on having it built within a timeframe not suitable for Mr. Alkin's specific agenda. Things get even worse, however, when an environmental scientist by the name of "Katya" (Kate Henry) appears on the scene and warns them of a potential super-avalanche if immediate action isn't taken. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a fairly boring film due in large part to the director (Mark Roper) trying to create suspense by repeating the same scenario over and over again. Likewise, the personal drama between the characters-especially Jock and his former girlfriend "Callie Alkin" (Jessica Brooks)-lacked the necessary passion to really amount to much. In any case, while those interested in a disaster movie of this type might not consider it to be too bad, it didn't really impress me and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Is all I could think about during the first 20 min (that's all I could do) is how much wasted money and energy went into this horrendous film. I know there are good screenplays out there being shelved...and yet we have this dog! It did have humor though..Like how they used every previous avalanche ever filmed and combined the footage. Different lighting...different mountain, different snow, but what does it matter when you get a good chuckle. I have three more lines but cannot think of anymore to say about this film. Awful Awful Awful. Oh, the little village is quaint until it gets hit by what seems to be a large cloud of talcum powder and tapioca. This mystery snow does not effect the trees though, they don't move?