Fire Serpent

Was the cast on quaaludes? The acting is so leaden you wonder if they were on something. No facial expressions, no reactions, no emotion. Just "actors" standing woodenly while reading slowly off cue cards. So slowly. Seriously detracts from the otherwise dreadful special effects and non existent plot.

Three stars for the Buffy alumni guy attempting to act and the surprisingly accurate depiction of just how expendable journalists are. Two die, no one even pretends to care. Three stars.

Sometimes you just need a silly sci-fi monster flick, you know? Even for the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) where this premiered, it's hard not to be gobsmacked by the list of names that are attached to it. Writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens should be at least nominally familiar to anyone who has dipped their toes into modern novels of science fiction; the man himself may be dubious, but it's safe to say William Shatner is no one to sneeze at in the genre. And with Robert Beltran and Nicholas Brendon helming the cast, among others, the least that can be said for this romp is that it has some star power. Of course, the fact remains that 'Fire serpent' is an unrepentant TV movie, and no matter who is involved in such a production it seems destined for schlock - it's the nature of the genre, the medium, and the network. Still, anyone who comes across this in passing already knows what they're getting into, so there's not too much point in making a fuss. What we see is what we get, and there are no real surprises on hand; if you're looking for a cheesy, uninvolved, low-grade creature feature, look no further.

To wit: the dialogue, characters, scene writing, plot, direction, and acting are all direly forced and unconvincing, though sometimes the acting switches things up and is instead wholly underwhelming. While the computer-generated imagery isn't the worst I've ever seen, there isn't the slightest effort to blend the digital creations into the filmed footage; post-production wizardry has rarely been more transparent and obvious than it is here (case in point, watch for a death scene around the half-hour mark). In no time at all the picture becomes something that we can "watch" just by having it on in the background and not meaningfully engaging with it otherwise; this Sci-Fi lark is light, unsophisticated kitsch just as much as the Hallmark romance or the Lifetime thriller, just in its own way. On the one hand, this is a tad more inventive than some of its kin as it goes so far as to introduce far-out weaponry to combat far-out entities; on the other hand, this grows more tiresome and dull as it invokes biblical mythology. Then again, maybe all such ruminations are beside the point; 'Fire serpent' never pretends to be anything it's not.

I think the title's reach exceeds its grasp as it tries to weave in narrative elements beyond the basic concept of "aliens made of fire." Those ideas are worth exploring in and of themselves, but the tawdry nature of the TV production means this ninety-minute film probably wasn't the best place to smash them all together. Moreover, the more this tries to do within its constraints, the more contrived and tough to swallow each component part becomes; we're given a complete, cohesive story, but it feels less cohesive with each addition. No matter how weak the contributions are as they present the least that can be said is that everyone involved helped to make this happen, and I can't say the end result isn't baseline enjoyable on some level. Even with that spirit of generosity in mind, though, the picture desperately needed to trim some of its excess and focus more tightly on a much smaller number of stronger central notions. As it stands, I don't think it comes close to meeting the potential of the premise; as it stands, the entertainment 'Fire serpent' has to offer is balanced against an inability to make viewers particularly care. There are still far worse ways to spend one's time, but even if you're a diehard fan of someone involved, this is best left as something frivolous to provide mild diversion on a lazy, quiet day. Take that as you will.

......though it did have Robert Beltran - not, alas, as Chakotay. WWJD ? What Would Janeway Do ? Fire some of Voyager's inexhaustible supply of photon torpedoes, most likely. This gets 2 stars, for a decentish beginning, and a decentish end.

Being one of the sy-fy channels earlier movies it does show the makings of something. If anything this film is actually better than most ones today. A more flushed out plot and the actors are actually pretty good in their roles, especially Nicholas brendon. The plot of having this creature born from fire that starts fires I found pretty interesting and would have been something to show with more progressing in a sequal. When it comes to it though this film was a fun watch and not to bad. Good one sy-fy.

Fire Serpent is a pretty run of the mill sci-fi channel movie of the week, which is strange considering how the one who 'created' the fire serpent concept, William Shatner, probably comes up with more wacky ideas than this. There's actually some messed-up creature potential with a thing like a 'fire serpent', as it's basically a gigantic fire-ball that spouts out of the sun, crashes to Earth, and sustains itself on human life and fossil fuels. But not much else is really explored, or exploited, aside from so-typical-it's-meh character schemes and a fairly complex level of figuring out how it is that the fire serpent actually goes about its business or how it can be stomped out. It's too run of the mill to get into any real interesting ground, but when compared to the last sci-fi channel movie featuring a Buffy alumni, Gryphon, Fire Serpent doesn't go into the depths of wretchedly hellish tripe all around.

This time we just get Nicholas Brendon as the 'young, teach-me-everything-from-a-mentor' young fireman, who meets Dutch Fallon (Randolph Mantooth, who's name is probably much cooler than anything else in the movie), a man who's been tracking the fire serpent for forty years, ever since it destroyed his girlfriend (which we see in a first inexplicable flashback at the start, then a second one where it's not really from his point of view as seen). Dutch, despite being an arsonist, is under the eye of an old rival, played by Rober Beltran, who also happens to be a big religious freak (some of this dialog is actually really funny, unintentionally of course). It all leads up to a showdown at a fossil-fuel station, where finally the cheesy sci-fi visual effects and limited action get their dues. Throughout we're treated to pretty half-note (not even quite one-note) characters, who occasionally talk in sound bytes from what might have been Shatner's pitch to the networks.

The lack of logic at times doesn't kill one's soul, but there's also not much to gorge on if you're looking for heavy action or twisted moments of delirious flights of sci-fi fancy; closest things I saw were when the serpent cut a woman in half (through a human host), and an amazingly entertaining- for all the wrong reasons- scene where a henchman tosses a grenade in Jake's car, leading to a very odd scene with the henchman just standing a while holding a targeting gun and not doing anything until a policeman and the fire serpent do their own things in the scene. Yet a lot of the time I just sat waiting for stuff to happen that built up to nothing very special, and a climax that didn't have me yelling or cursing at the screen but seemed still annoying in just going bigger and crazier (and not fun crazy) until that last warped moment of an open-book ending. Fire Serpent 2 perhaps? I'd really hope not, as there wasn't enough to really sustain the first one, except over-cooked plot contrivances (or under-cooked depending on point of view), cardboard acting (even when one is shot and near-death), and a fairly limited creature by way of the visual effects (not like Gryphon, though that's like saying it's the clap instead of AIDS).