Critical Mass

Trailer—Critical Mass

I gave this film a 2 because it at least tried to have a plot and wasn't as awful as something like "Manos the Hands of Fate." It's the typical, international terrorists try to make a nuclear weapon to destroy the west coast schlock. That being said, I can now go into why this movie sucked so badly. Granted, someone makes a terrorist film every year. That's just how it goes. The problem with this one is how blatantly unoriginal it was. Not only was it the same old formula, throw in a German, a down on his luck, former cop security guard, and the whiny bitch senator and boom, you've got a movie. Udo and Treat seem to have really needed cash, or exposure, or both. The worst part is that I haven't even mentioned the blatantly stolen footage from Terminator 2. They stole every damn thing that they could use for the story. They didn't even change the Cyberdyne Systems name. Can we say "lawsuit" or "copyright infringement?"

Wow, this movie is awesome. You see, it starts with this building, and some terrorists get into it, put explosives everywhere and then they steal all this Radioactive Material (TM). Then they proceed to kill some SWAT people, and they're surrounded but the guy who's waiting in a bulletproof truck drives thru the lobby of the building! Can you believe it? They all leave, and you are treated to a wonderful scene of the building exploding! But there's this helicopter chasing them, firing automatic weapons from the cockpit thru the glass, which as we all know, is standard police procedure during helicopter chases. It goes under a bridge, but then one of the terrorists has a terrific idea! He orders his buddy to hit the brakes, and the chopper smashes into the truck! The terrorists then drive away. I mean it's a wonderful scene! I swear, it's very original, I'm pretty sure it's never been done before. They must have spent a lot of money on all those scenes, and destroying that expensive helicopter, and the building, oh boy! They even thought of this unique name for the building. It's called Cyberdyne Systems. Uncanny! Did I tell you about the part when one of the older terrorists throws a desk thru the window of the building and then starts firing at the police cars?

Well, I bought this movie because I was a Treat Williams fan, but I couldn't even stand him in this movie. I don't give it a bad rating for the acting, because I didn't have much patience with this movie, so I didn't pay much attention to the acting. The movie is just simply too bad for words, mainly because of the shameless ripoffs. Anyone who's a fan of action films will be sent sobbing to the floor by this. Look hard for any scenes that seem familiar, because they are! This movie uses scenes from at least two other movies, and not just short scenes. The most memorable is their use of the entire 15 minute Cyberdyne attack of "Terminator 2"! Also, if that wasn't bad enough, just see the cut and paste truck chase scene from "Universal Soldier"! At least 30 minutes of this movie isn't original footage. I cannot recommend it!

Apart from the first ten minutes, which are shamelessly lifted DIRECTLY from Terminator 2 (exactly the same shots - maybe they couldn't afford to do their own explosions)this is brilliant b-movie fare, encapsulating several Shakespearean themes in a twenty-first contextualisation, with that fine character actor Treat Williams expertly dealing with the conflicting emotions, weight problems and freak bad luck thrown at the lead man. Go and see this film: the dialogue may be a touch wooden, the effects a touch cheap and the acting a touch awful but you can see that there is a touch of class about this movie.

This opens at the cyberdyne factory but it isn`t TERMINATOR 2 . It also involves a German leader leading his terrorist gang but it`s not DIE HARD . Oh hold on the plot more or less is DIE HARD , and do you know what`s worse ? THE WHOLE OPENING SEQUENCE IS TERMINATOR 2 !!!! . You read that right , the opening sequence of CRITICAL MASS contains lengthy scenes from James Cameron`s 1991 blockbuster and instantly reminded me of the straight to video film RANGERS that contains umpteen action scenes from other films . Can anyone tell me how legal this is because when RETURN OF THE KING is released I`m going to stick the three LORD OF THE RINGS films together and sell it to distributors claiming it`s my own original work. On its own ( ie the bits that weren`t stolen from TERMINATOR or UNIVERSAL SOLDIER ) this movie isn`t up to much , it`s just another of those " Bunch of terrorists hold everyone to ransom " type movies though when a bunch of journalists get blown away the hero saves the one with long hair and firm breasts so you`ve got to admire his sense of priorities