Crystal Inferno (2018) Reviews

• This is a really awful movie...

  richard-davis-987-6766152017-12-05

  Acting is straight out of stage-school. Wooden and rigid. The plot is poor. The dialogue/script is very, very poor. This isn't even TV movie quality. How on earth did Claire Forlani fall from Meet Joe Black to this rubbish? Avoid this. Don't waste 93 minutes of your life. EDIT: I wrote after having watched the first 20-25 minutes. I wish I could now give it a lower score, as the film just got progressively worse... What Claire Forlani's character did in the lift shaft at about 55 mins is simply ludicrous. The acting surrounding an aerial accident a bit later is even worse. I wish I could unwatch this diatribe.

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• So bad - it's hilariously funny

  neillynchehaun2018-04-13

  It really is so bad you have to watch it. Wayne Williams has called out a lot of the continuity errors, which is a real irony given the plot line is about poor continuity in some photo evidence of adultery - excellent. The acting is dreadful. I can only assume it's a combination of bad writing and direction as many of the actors have had fine performances in other productions. Riley Jackson trumps the rest of the cast for the most ridiculously exaggerated acting. (How did she get such a strong US accent with a British father, a US mother with a soft accent and growing up in Belgium?!!) Obviously made for a US audience, with planted English, such as the Antwerpen fire fighters "Brandweer" having the English word "Fire" on the back of their uniforms and the "News" van being labelled in English, just in case you couldn't figure out what it was. And how clever was the news reporter to jump straight into asking questions about the building's fire control systems, a few minutes into the incident!!! Some continuity bloopers to add to Wayne's list:- Look out for the engineer wearing a yellow helmet, in the background, just before the explosion. He's so funny, wobbling his head back and forth in order to use a ratchet spanner or socket, very badly. What's with all the random steel girders loitering in the ceiling space, waiting to fall out on their victims below, one of whom gets up and limps out of the building. And there must be lots more. Seriously watch this film, but be prepared to enjoy how bad it is.

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• I can't believe this movie cost 2 million Euro to make

  williamsw-12017-12-17

  It looks like it cost about a tenth of that. The fact that they had that much funding to work with and produced this drivel is just pathetic. OK, I'm sure that a fair portion of it must have gone to Forlani and Bamber, but why they signed on for this totally escapes me. They both recently completed other projects prior to this and also have new movies in the pipeline, so it's not like either are desperate for work. This movie falls flat in so many ways. The person pitching this must have been really impressive because there was barely enough content for 30 minutes let alone an hour and 30 minutes. Scenes that should be short in order to create tension are stretched out to fill the running time. The effect was like having your teeth extracted in slow motion without any anaesthetic. The dialogue is so bad I'm convinced it was contracted out to the lowest bidder on Upwork. The same goes for the special FX - I could have created them on my 5 year old PC in less than a day. The saddest part is that, even though the plot, if you can call it that, borrows liberally from Towering Inferno and a bunch of other movies, with a bit of effort they could still have developed it into something worth watching. Yet, it is almost like they purposefully didn't even try. Why not allocate some time to Bamber's character confronting his wife about the pictures? Why not have her investigate their origin and the reason behind someone sending them? I can only guess because it would make one think more about this and wonder how the characters could not be suspicious of photos of this nature sent anonymously. Oh, not to mention that the children are able to discover that the photos are faked in a matter of minutes, yet the high priced lawyers had them analysed and were not able to disprove their authenticity. Their experts probably disappeared into one of the plot holes never to be seen again. There are so many basic logic, continuity and practical errors it is clear they never bothered to consult technical advisers. Here are just a couple of examples: 1) Bamber's character is heading down the stairs and is not able to continue due to smoke, so attempts to exit the stairwell at that floor, but the door handle is too hot. Why is the handle hot if it is a few floors up from the fire? 2) He then attempt to cover his mouth and go down the stairs through the smoke, but succumbs to smoke inhalation. So where did the firefighters that found him come from? 3) They then proceed downward where he was not able to go previously and arrive at the conclusion that they have reached the point of origin because the door is hot. Seriously? 4) This is supposed to be a huge multi-storey building, yet it only has one stairwell. I'm guessing they paid the building inspectors to ignore that... 5) The building in the marketing pictures is clearly not the same building as the one in the movie, as the shape it different and it is clearly much taller. 6) Also, the building in the pictures is virtually destroyed, whereas in the movie almost all visible damage is limited to the 20th floor. 7) At one point Beaumont refers to the lawyers "down" on the 60th floor, whereas the building clearly has nowhere near 60 floors. 8) When the two guys head out to the helipad, one can clearly see it is an older building with peeling paint and rusted girders and not newly constructed. 9) The electricity to the lift went out, yet they were later able to "ground" it. 10) In fact, just about everything in respect of the lift is totally unbelievable. My understanding is that legally all modern lifts are required to have battery backup. Usually, in event of a power outage, the lift goes to the next floor, opens the doors and then shuts the lift down to prevent further usage. They are also required to have an alarm in case of emergency. This used to be a button, but in modern lifts it is generally an intercom that runs off the battery backup so that it remains operational in event of a power outage. 11) At one point in the movie one is shown what is happening from the perspective of the building's security cameras and one can clearly see the two children stuck in the lift. So are we then expcted to assume that there is nobody monitoring the cameras? I honestly wasn't trying to nitpick. These shortcomings are just so glaringly obvious, one has to wonder how this movie was ever made. If I can save even one person from wasting 90 minutes of their life, then writing this review will have been worthwhile.

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• My Review Of "Inferno: Skyscraper Escape" aka "Crystal Inferno"

  ASouthernHorrorFan2018-06-30

  The story lacks originality and follows well established tropes with villainous corporate types, wholesome archetypes and just-add-wickedness mayhem. A real Syfy ready summer flick. The one positive and strong exception to this slightly mundane premise is the female lead of Supergirl/Wonder Woman heroine-ness of Claire Forlani'mother/professional character. Sadly the miss use of Jamie Bamber was a obvious disappointment, to equal Forlani. The special effects are the typical display of scaled-down practical tricks that one expects from this level of disaster movie blended with lower budgeted CGI effects. This doesn't mean that the film is bad or cheap, just didn't want to equate "Inferno: Skyscraper Escape" to the Syfy channel, but yeah this one would work beautifully on their lineup. The effect have ample quality and impact with only a mild drop in CGI quality. Overall the movie gives a straight-to-Redbox, low budget performance that works as far as action entertainment value for fans of microbudget disaster/action flicks. There is a strong female lead that plays to the heart of the story. There is some superbad acting and some melodrama that falls flat but for what it is, "Inferno: Skyscraper Escape" is a decent flick that should satisfy fans of this type film.

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• Simply horrible

  warf19682019-01-10

  Don't waste your money has some of the worst acting that I have seen in awhile!!