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Overall Rating : 5.5/10
Directed By : Kristoffer Tabori
Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries (TV) )
Lexa Doig (V (TV) )
Aleks Paunovic (Maneater)
Aaron Pearl (Vipers)
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : July. 28, 2010
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| PLOT n this red hot action-adventure... Former football star turned convict, Tyler "The Fuse" Draven, discovers in jail that he has the ability to create fire by mere thought alone! Now he's going to use his new- found power to wreak havoc and get revenge on everyone that's ever done him wrong... which seems to be the entire world! His deadly skill and fiery temper has Draven bent on a mission of total destruction unless the authorities find a way to stop him! |
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| THE REVIEW The plot of the Sci-Fi Thriller FIREBALL centers around a world famous Football star named Tyler Draven. Draven, whose known by everyone one the field as 'The Fuse', Has just been suspended from the league for his violent temper, as well as an addiction to performance enhancing drugs, most importantly a designer steroid that contains traces of his own DNA. With speculation among the airwaves, it's just enough to set Draven off, so much so, that again he sees himself taken in on assault charges. On his first night in the slammer, the place catches fire leaving it in a blaze killing off all of the inmate. Fire inspectors investigating the fire are quick to assume that the Football star would be among the ashes left behind, but Inspector Ava Williams and others are shocked to find Tyler Draven still alive after sustaining burns that covered 90% of his body. He is later shipped to the hospital, where it isn't long that Draven miraculously heals, and escapes from the facility, something that both, Ava and the federal agent assigned to Draven, Lee Cooper see as an impossible feat. But something is different about Draven as a few fiery explosions that follow the man would point out. It seems as if the DNA steroid that 'The Fuse has been taking, has somehow altered his DNA since the fire, as he know has the power to ignite anything into flames with merely his sweat and anger. As the explosions continue to occur through out town and with innocent people dying by flame, both Ava and Lee, as well as a team of experts must diverge a plan to cool the once 'hot' Linebacker down before he can cause even more damage, Knowing that FIREBALL was a made for Television film, I just assumed that some time or another it must have shown on the SYFY Channel(and upon looking it up, I found out that I was correct), so I kind of knew what type of film to expect. Lets face it, SYFY doesn't necessarily have a track record of showing great films - most are bad, but sometimes their are a few here and there that are quite good, even if only just on a B-Movie kind of level. FIREBALL turns out to be one of those that falls into the later, because no matter how silly its plot may be, it still ends up being a good time overall. The story revolves around a star Linebacker, who has a little bit of an anger problem, one that gets him suspended as well as thrown in jail. He happens to survive a deadly fire, but by doing so, he gains sort of a power, in which he is able to generate and manipulate fire. It's as silly as it sounds, sure, but all of it is forgivable for the sake of fun, and laughs as well. This film is like an even lower budget version of Steven King's classic, FIRESTARTER, except this time, in place of a darling young Drew Barrymore, is a brutish bulk of a man. While it's clearly not as good as the aforementioned film, it's still entertaining enough to pass the time. It's a film that you never are to take seriously, nor do I belive that was ever it's intention(seeing as the actor whom portrays Draven, Aleks Paunovic, begins the film with a horrible wig, that is mysteriously gone after the fire in favor of a bald head and that numerous choppy explosions occur through out, seemingly just for the sake of happening. Although this film might be low budget, made for TV fare, they one thing that makes it most enjoyable is that it does have some pretty decent acting. Here as federal agent Lee Cooper we have star Ian Somerhalder, who is quite the TV star now, starring as the mysterious Damian Salvatore on the hit series THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. His co-star, Lexa Doig, who is Ava Williams has also done some TV starring in episodes of the newly rebooted series "V". Together they make a formidable duo on screen Somerhalder as the city boy, who as come to the country, and Doig as the, at home small town fire inspector. Both are able to separate the differences of the two characters, but still make an unlikely, likable pair. Doig also had the difficult task of making SYFY channel Science jargon sound plausible, something that is failed upon more times than not, but no matter how inaccurate any of it may be(which I could care less about anyway), at least she makes it sound believable at least. Yes, a story about a crazed football player, who is a flame thrower, is silly, but sometimes the bad movie fan in all of us needs to embrace the silly things that we watch, and for me, this would be one of those times. It's not all that bad if you go into it just looking for a good time. |
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| GORE
METER 1/10 There is no real gore here to speak of, spare a few burns here and there, most of the film's victims merely "explode" with little to no detail shown on screen. |
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MUSICAL
SCORE 2/10 The film has a typical action score, that is nothing that truly stands out. | ||||
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM For a SYFY Channel "Original" movie, FIREBALL is actually a pretty decent film. No it will never win any awards for being an outstanding action thriller, but nonetheless it does the job by being something that is at least entertaining, If you have nothing else to do, with some time to kill, give this film a shot, you just find something to laugh st, and who knows, along the way, you just might like find yourself enjoying it, even if it is just a little bit. |
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