Desert Thunder

A by the numbers, low-budget war film capitalizing on the (then) impending threat of Iraqi bioterrorism. Because neither Congress or the UN will act, a squabbling military brings a reluctant, guilt-ridden Air Force officer out of self-enforced retirement to recruit and train the usual gang of bickering misfits. This takes most of the film's running time, leaving the last 10 minutes for the obligatory fiery air strikes, probably cobbled together from some other movie and repeated where necessary for the decidedly non-climactic climax. You've seen this all before, done much better.

I am a movie watcher from way back, and I can pretty much believe anything that the director brings to the film. This is a movie that you don't need to loose any brain cells over, full with the stuff that men, and sometimes women love. Human fights, food fights, gun fights, and yes jet fights, with a explosion or two. WHAT I don't get is the other movies that are in this movie, check this out... There is a jet dog-fight from Top Gun, there is a airplane vs. two helicopters fight from Capricorn One, there is a jet vs. everything on the ground from the movie Iron Eagles. Don't get me wrong, the movie is entertaining, but the only original fight was the food.

This movie is one of the worst movies ever made. It is not just bad, it is so bad that i just had to watch it until the end because i was stunned by just how much a movie can suck. I sincerely can't believe that there were people that invested their money into THIS. I also find it hard to believe that there are 10 people that rated this movie "10" on IMDb. It was probably the director and some members of his family or something.

To summarize, there is absolutely NOTHING good to point out in the entire movie. The plot is extra-unoriginal and seen in slightly different shapes a billion times. The direction is even poorer, because usually movies similar to this one are in a few moments exciting, but this one is dull the entire time. The acting is also a bad joke. I can't believe someone managed to make such a lousy movie.

If some scenes look familiar and feel out of place it's because they are, this movie uses footage from both Navy Seals and Iron Eagle. Anything of its own making is poorly put together and at times frustratingly bad. Most of the movie is taken up by the misfit bunch of characters goofing around, falling out, and eating lunch. The basic story is simple and could have been decent if told well, but this movie just feels cheap and lazy.

Yes, it's just like a James Bond movie, except:

even more implausible plot

bad guys can't act

good guys can't act

both are annoying anyway

or maybe it's just the script (there WAS one?)

humor isn't as good

cheap special effects

no suspense, no big ending

Seriously, I walked out of the room for a minute, came back to find the credits scrolling. I had no idea that just before that I had been watching the great ending.... there wasn't any!

The special effects all look the same - like barrels of gasoline blowing up (or whatever that frequently-used explosion effect is). It doesn't matter what's blowing up -- plane, building, car, outhouse. It looks like they built really cheap props and then just put exploding barrels in everything.

They talk about things that would sound like good effects, only you never see them because they would be too expensive to do. For example, you see a surface-to-air missile launcher sitting there. Then you hear the pilot say that there's missiles heading towards him and he takes evasive action (or maybe just talks about taking evasive action -- don't remember). Then you see the missile launcher blowing up (see paragraph above). But you never see the missile launch or fly towards the plan, because that's a more difficult effect.

And so on. But if you're really bored and like simple scripts and lots of things blowing up in a not too spectacular fashion, this movie isn't so bad.