Crossworlds (1996)
DVD FEATURES: Widescreen & Full Screen Format, 2.0 Dolby Surround, Digitally Mastered, Interactive Menus, Scene access, French & Spanish Subtitles, and Cast Information and 2 trailers.
Starring...Rutger Hauer, Josh Charles, Stuart Wilson, Andrea Roth, and Jack Black???
Directed by...Krishna Rao
My Rating:
Yet another "C" movie, what is it lately with all the C's being the majority of the reviews??? Hmmm need to break away from that...anyway...Crossworlds is the film here and it is a film I have been wanting to see for a LONG time! I saw the trailer for this film a while back and always thought it looked good, but I could never find it. Luckily Lions Gate Films rules and they have it on DVD which is pretty fucking sweet! The film was not as good as I was hoping, but it was still good enough to make me glad I own it. And I never knew it was PG-13 either, but hey, don't let that deter you away from it. It's still a fun film! Well here is the story....
Joe Talbot (Josh Charles) leads a boring life, no girlfriend, no sense of fun, and no balls as his friends say to him. He won't even let people call him JOE! He wants to be called Joseph and gets pissed when people don't call him that. All of this is about to change when one night after a party, he awakens to see a knockout gorgeous woman straddling him in his bed (WHY CANT THAT EVER HAPPEN TO ME!?!??!) Course...this can never be a good thing for when he gets up to kick her out (she had a knife on him) he opens his front door, and instead of his front porch being there, there was an ARABIAN DESERT WITH A GUY IN A TURBAN SWINGING A CLUB CHARGING AT HIM!!! And it doesn't end there, alien mob men come in and shoot up his place, Joe escapes with Laura and takes Talbot to meet up with a rugged mercenary A.T. (Rutger Hauer) A.T. tells him that he is wearing some kind of super powerful necklace that can open up other dimensions and now a very powerful (and pissed off) man wants it (don't you hate it when that happens?) When a old scepter is combined with the jewel in the necklace, it can destroy the dimensions creating one dimension... A.T tells Joe in one simple line what is going on...
"We are the good guys, they are the bad guys, we've got this! They want this...real bad!"
Ok, well at least it isn't complicated, so they must now fend for themselves, trying to stay alive while keeping the scepter AWAY from Ferris (Stuart Wilson) who is trying to destroy our dimension to create his OWN evil one...and you thought this was just going to be another simple sci-fi movie....
The thing that brings this movie down is the acting, I mean Rutger seemed like he couldn't have cared less either way. It was like he was saying, I am here, where's my paycheck, these the lines? Ok, transdimensional rift opens we are all screwed ok, have a nice night boys! Well this is his attitude for the first half, then he becomes funny and it gets better. But the one who really ruined it for me was Josh Charles, he was HORRIBLE in it. I mean, come on, I know you can act better then that, shit even Jack Black pulled his weight!!! Speaking of Jack Black...WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING IN THIS!?!? That was the biggest shocker of them all for me, but I must say, he was hilarious in it. I wish he had a bigger role though. Andrea Roth was actually alot better then the rest of the cast, and Stuart Wilson did a decent job. But the 2 main people, Rutger and Josh, should be ashamed of themselves!
The directing is decent, nothing REALLY spectacular here folks, just the run of the mill directing. Next to no blood and guts and no nudity, BUT! The special effects make up for it, I was surprised to see them be so good in a film that's budget was apparently...so low! It had a good idea and plot, had the people actually cared about how they acted in this, this film could have made some real money.
The DVD itself is kind of off balance, the picture quality has seen better days for it is hard to believe it was actually on a DVD disc. The sound was uneven at times as well, with the action sequences blasting away, and then when people were talking they were lower then normal sound. I found myself turning the volume up and down at 3 in the morning! The DVD has a trailer for Star Kid, (yes Star Kid) and one for itself, nothing really good on the DVD.
I say, this film, despite it's downfalls, is worth the time to watch it. You have to take it for what it is worth, it's a fun flick that could have more fun had the actors actually given a damn. So if you see it on the shelf of your local video center, check it out, it is creative and a fun watch, or you could rent Cut and wish you could CUT your wrists... your choice.
Special Guest Reviewers:
George Newman:
"Is it just me, or does Joe seem like he is older then 21? Yeah, he looks like he may be 31! Gotta love these people who mistake the ol' TV MAKE YOU LOOK 10 POUNDS HEAVIER....It's not 10 years older!!!"