| Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (sic) | ||
 |
USA, 1996. Rated R. 77 minutes. Cast: Christopher Lambert, Natasha
Henstridge, Norbert Weisser, Elizabeth Barondes, Xavier de Clie, Craig
Davis, Nicholas Guest, Andrew Divoff |
|
| Grade:
F (and that's generous) |
Review by Carlo Cavagna |
he creative
process is truly a miracle that defies explanation, but let's try. Writer/director
Albert Pyun must have been touring a group of abandoned buildings and an old
jail in Bratislava one day when his Muse suddenly spoke to him. It's difficult
for a mundane mind such as my own to imagine the mental process that occurred,
but it must have been something along the lines of, "Hey, this would be a really
cool place to shoot a movie!"
Being a savvy director, however, Pyun knows that more than a bitchin' set is required to make a movie. So what does Pyun do? Well, first he guarantees himself an audience by casting bestubbled cult hero Christopher Lambert (Highlander 1-3) and model Natasha Henstridge (Species 1 & 2). Second, because Pyun knows that he can't just have his stars stumbling around in the dark chasing a deformed bad guy for an hour and a half (sample dialogue: "Over here!" "What?" "Arrrg!"), he devotes several minutes to setting up a premise.
The chase takes place in a quarantine camp in the year 2007, and Pyun's villain carries a lethal virus. He will become contagious in just a few hours! If police officers Lambert and Henstridge don't catch him, thousands will die! Naturally, there must also be a subplot. Henstridge has purchased a passport on the black market that will enable her to get out of the quarantine camp. Will she survive to get her son to safety, or will she be arrested for possessing illegal documents??
Finally, realizing that appealing to an American audience is essential to cinematic success, Pyun shrewdly informs us that his story is set in Boston, even though most of the characters have foreign accents, and the police cars bear the distinctly un-American word Policia. Not to mention that "adrenaline" is spelled wrong in the title.
Review
© March 1999 by AboutFilm.Com and the author.
Image © 1996 Miramax. All rights reserved.
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