Famously detested film director Uwe Boll finally tackles a subject that many film fans, and video game aficionados, felt he could possibly be the harbinger for -- the apocalypse. Yes, in our apocalypse-drenched times with the bottoms falling out of economic markets and civil unrest,… More
Famously detested film director Uwe Boll finally tackles a subject that many film fans, and video game aficionados, felt he could possibly be the harbinger for -- the apocalypse. Yes, in our apocalypse-drenched times with the bottoms falling out of economic markets and civil unrest, it was only a matter of time before Boll decided to put his unique German stamp on the end of the world. Usually we associate a feeling of dread with the apocalypse, akin to the feeling of dread whenever somebody turns on a Boll movie. Except Boll's apocalyptic entry, The Final Storm, is a direct-to-DVD oddity that actually works for a while but ultimately fails like other Boll movies. But here's the funny thing -- it's not Boll's fault.
Tom (Steve Bacic) and Gillian Grady (Lauren Holly) ditched their big city lives to raise live on a farm out in the country. The TV is filled with apocalyptic flair: riots, fires, strange weather, radiation leaks, power outages, etc. Over the night, a ferocious storm knocks out the family's power. Their dog runs off into the night and a mysterious stranger collapses on their doorstep. Silas (Luke Perry) says his family used to live on the Grady farm, but he can't remember much else. Tom is convinced (somehow) that Silas is no good, whereas Tom's wife is happy to accept a guest that will agree to do housework. When the Grady clan, plus Silas, enters into town they find it deserted. People seemed to have vanished overnight, except for the violent gang roaming the town. Silas, a man of faith, is pretty confidant that God's Rapture is upon mankind, but Tom goes back into town once more to seek answers about the world and about Silas' family past.
For a while there, The Final Storm actually presents a pair of intriguing mysteries that keep the mind occupied: 1) Who is Silas, and 2) What has happened to the outside world? The world has pretty much disappeared; neighbors are gone, the police station has half-drunk cups of coffee and half-eaten donuts. Tom keeps trying to find a rational explanation for what is happening, arguing that the empty town was evacuated as a precaution. But a precaution against what exactly? Something major is underway or has already taken place. Ever since the heavy storm, there have been no birds singing or circkets chirping, no real noises of any kind. Silas is pretty confidant that it's the end of the world and says that all they have to do is "stack up the chairs and turn out the lights." Boll places us in the family's camp; we only know as much as the beleaguered family trying to make sense out of the unexplainable. Canadian screenwriter Tim McGregor (Bitten) is telling a worldly event from a small perspective, trying to personalize the apocalypse. There are no big special effects sequences a la 2012 where the earth swallows cities whole. There is only uncertainty and an overall dread that something is coming but must be waited for. It's an unsettling thought and played out with enough Twilight Zone --level ambiguity to keep the audience guessing and sticking around for answers.
A general complaint is that nobody seems to react about, you know, the End of Days. Animals and people disappeared over night. Certain townspeople are left behind. Why? Why were others taken and others not? How exactly does that one get explained (in the Left Behind movies, they comically tried to explain the Rapture as "radiation")? The only one who shows any sign of concern is Gillian, probably because she's slotted into the thriller female role and thus needs to express concern and eventually need saving. Tom is too preoccupied with his paranoia over Silas, and Silas is supposed to be mysterious so he reacts like he always knew the apocalypse was right around the corner. Even Graham (Cole Heppell), the Grady's son, seems to be more concerned with his missing dog than the end of all existence. If only everybody was this blasé about the End of Days.
But then there's that other mystery. Silas shows up at the Grady family home the night of the intense thunderstorm. He says he can't recall how he got there, per se, and his body is covered in Biblical tattoos. Silas also appears to have some sort of insight into what's happening in the world. He even tells Graham that his dog, which ran away during the storm, is dead. He's so certain and preoccupied with making a nice grave marker for the dog that I almost started guessing that Silas was the dead dog incarnate. Seriously, the movie really tries hard to present the illusion that Silas has some sort of ephemeral connection to what is happening, some sort of understanding that goes beyond knowledge of Scripture.
And then the last 20 minutes of the movie reveal that Silas is ... (spoiler alert) just some dude who killed his dad and escaped from prison. The Grady home is Silas' old family home. So the guy who Tom kept saying was dangerous, who showed no real signs of being unbalanced or anything other than courtly and helpful, is revealed to be your standard killer on the loose. This is where The Final Storm utterly falls apart. These characters should be reacting with more alarm about the end of the world. Perhaps McGregor was trying to illustrate how extreme situations affect us, and how jealousy and paranoia can take hold as a means of comfort and survival. But I don't buy that. First off, it rewards Tom for his unchecked paranoia that had no basis in reality. Silas fixes the roof, helps fend off attackers in town, and chops wood, but it all just makes Tom angry. The last 20 minutes is Silas fully embracing his villainy, the stuff that didn't show any previous signs of existing. Silas is one big red herring and the movie shifts gears so quickly and absurdly to fit in "super able killer terrorizes family clan" mode. Silas gets frisky with Gillian, asking her to bring in hot water for his bath while he's in the tub (it's like an Amish Body Heat). Then he goes full crazy and tries to hand Tom in a tree. Eventually, Silas is set on fire and stabbed with a pitchfork. Then the family stares into the sky and watches as stars get blotted out and the universe collapses. Where is the connection to the apocalypse? The two storylines don't seem to mix when there is no greater connection. It feels like an ordinary "dangerous drifter" story weirdly set against the backdrop of the apocalypse. Why connect these stories if there is no relevancy, McGregor? It seems like an awfully big waste of time.
Luke Perry (TV's first Beverly Hills 90210) and Lauren Holly (Dumb and Dumber) don't seem too shocking to star in a Boll movie when you remind yourself that this isn't 1996 and neither star has exactly been in high demand since their zeniths. That's the Boll casting way: catch a falling star. Perry is actually pretty good. He has this serene nature to him that regrettably makes him seem knowledgeable, until you realize that his secret he's hiding is mundane. He has a slight creepiness brought out through his serenity, but then he gives in fully to malice when his character indulges the dark side. Holly's character is mostly the worried mother figure, the concerned type who widens her eyes and dribbles her lips to denote said worry. There's little else to her character, though McGregor tries to come up with some weak back-story. Holly goes in and out of a Southern accent but is generally decent at being wary. What is perhaps the most perplexing is that Holly agrees to get naked for a Uwe Boll movie. She takes off her shirt during the first of two eventual sex scenes with her husband (the second one seems even more dubious against the backdrop of the apocalypse). Holly has done nudity before on screen, but I think this was her first chance to show off the work she's gotten done to her upper torso (check out 1993's Enter the Dragon to compare the difference). Anyway, it's a point of excitement for any NCIS fans out there that can still feel something below the waist.
As for Boll, this is one movie that I can honestly say is not his fault. His direction doesn't exactly elevate the material but at the same time he doesn't get in the way of the mysteries. I was genuinely interested in discovering what has happened. I figured a religious explanation was going to be the climax, especially after we witness a blood-red moon. But it's not Boll's fault that the movie collapses at the end when it feels the need to endanger the family by cribbing from slasher movie rules. Boll's direction is fairly invisible, though a few shots seem to go on much longer than necessary. The entire production feels like a TV-movie just with a few more naughty words. I feel like Boll is getting a better command of how to direct actors because Holly, Perry, and Bacic (TV's Big Love), who actually is the best actor of the bunch, all give decent if underwhelming performances. But it wouldn't be a Boll movie without some form of imitation. I think McGregor and Boll were trying to create their own version of Cormac McCarthy's widely revered, The Road. There's an unidentifiable apocalypse, a father and son, roaming bands of desperate gangs, and the general unease of futility creeping up. Too bad that Boll's movie
The Final Storm isn't necessarily a good movie by most standards, but by Boll's standards it rises to the top of the junk heap. The supernatural apocalyptic mystery is clearly the most interesting aspect, far more interesting than Silas becoming your standard movie maniac terrorizing a family. Has he no consideration? It's the end of the world, man. Leave land squabbles for the day after the apocalypse. This unrelated side story pretty much derails the movie during the last act, jettisoning the apocalypse for lousy thriller fare. Boll's direction lets the story play out to its potential and we feel the pull of the mystery, the longing for discovery and answers, and then the answers end up being far less than satisfying. The movie is probably a little too slow for its own good, which furthers my hypothesis that McGregor had half a story about a crazy drifter and thought, "Well, I can't finish this. I'll throw together some end of the world stuff and call it a day." Boll seems to be advancing as a director; the last few movies have become more capable. This is the first of his thirteen movies (and counting) that I've reviewed that I can say, without a hint of seething irony, that this movie sucks and it's not Boll's fault. Of course, you're still left with a movie that sucks.
Nate's Grade: C
