20140503: SciFi Review--500 MPH Storm

500 MPH Storm

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated NR, 86 minutes, SciFi, action.
2. IMDB: 2.1/10.0 from 592 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 300,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 9% liked it from 83 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 211,507 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Daniel Lusko.
6. Starring: Casper van Dien as Nathan Sims, Sarah Lieving as Mona Sims, Bryan Head as Johnny Sims, Keith Meriweather as Captain Wright, Dale O'Malley as Tech Oxenberg, James Lawrence Sicard as Specialist Tudor, Michael Beach as Simon Caprisi,


2. Setup and Plot
1. Simon's group starts a energy production project.  The beam generated is a lot stronger than expected, and it starts hosing the weather in the TX/NM/AZ region.  Nathan wrote much of the theory underlying the project, but has been absent from it for a while.  When the problems start, Simon tries to contact Nathan.  The Sims family is on the run from the storms, and eventually Nathan needs to get with Simon to correct things...such as getting the core of the project's reactor cooled off.


2. Most of the film is about getting Nathan to the project, keeping the Sims family safe, and fixing the project.


3. Nathan gets information to Simon to stop the beam.  Then the bigger problems show up.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: There is not much to recommend this nonsensical disaster film.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 The parts with no FX were nicely shot.  The SFX were on the cheesy side.  The model for the project's main site looked like 1960s SciFi props.  Some of the matte paintings were not well done at all.


2. Sound: 3/10 The actors were miked OK.  Some of the background music was OK, but a lot of it sounded like it was generated from an automatic system.  That irritated me quite a bit.


3. Acting: 2/10 Sarah Lieving is always easy on the eye and the ear, but this is another film like Mega Shark and Super Shark; I wish she would move to better films.  Casper van Dien has done better work, and he helps keep this project from being absolutely terrible.  Similarly, this is about the worst property I've seen Michael Beach in.  The other actors were rather bad, Bryan Head in particular.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The dialog and the plot were both simplistic and nonsensical.  The film tries to convey a sense of urgency.  However, the repetitions, the mistakes, and the poor delivery by many of the actors negated much the urgency.