Skyfire

Good movie from China, gives the same vibes as Jurassic world without the dinosaurs. CGI is well done and I was waiting for the obvious hollywood trope at some point but it never happened, good change of that, a nice surprise. It's a cool disaster movie to watch with the family and I really hope they make more of them.

Tianhuo Island is as beautiful as a paradise. It almost makes people forget that it is located in the "Ring of Fire" the world-famous Pacific Rim volcanic belt. The volcano erupted, and the fate of the people in the island was entangled.

Well, I've seen my share of volcano movies (of which 'Dante's Peak' and 'Flight Crew' are my favorites, and 'Pompeii' my least favorite), so I was very excited to watch this.

The first thing that grabbed me, was the beautiful score - sweeping, melodic, epic. Then the stunning cinematography and amazing visuals. This film truly LOOKS amazing on screen. This is the type of movie I'd watch for the scenery and cinematography alone.

'Skyfire' felt like a 'Jurassic World' sequel - without the Dinosaurs, off course. From the setting to the disaster element reminded me of 'Jurassic World'. The characters and their back stories are pretty basic, but lets face it, we're not here to analyze characters, are we? We watch these films to marvel at the destruction scenes and be thrilled by action and chaos that ensues in the wake of a volcanic eruption.

The film was like a silky smooth chocolate on my palate, satisfying every craving. 'Skyfire' takes the viewer on a roller coaster ride from the very beginning. The action and suspense never lets up. This is an impressively well made film that never ceases to amaze, and there really never is a dull moment.

My biggest critique would be the acting. Hannah Quinlivan, especially, wasn't strong enough to portray the film's hero, Meng Li. We needed someone who could do for this film what Angelina Jolie did for 'Tomb Raider', or Kate Beckinsale for 'Underworld'. They are powerhouse performers who did the characters justice. Possibly the biggest issue is the fact that directors use too little practical effects nowadays, so actors have very little to work with.

Despite loads of improbabilities, this was a hell of a fun movie; exciting, thrilling and very well made. This might just rank among my favorite disaster movies - certainly on an entertainment level!

I was in the mood for an action-filled, silly-but-fun disaster movie tonight, and this was exactly that--except to my deep disappointment, it was dubbed. Every dubbed film I have ever seen ruins the film with terrible translations that make dialog provokingly inane and the film hard to watch. I like hearing the original language, and the actual voices of the actors, and besides the terrible translations, the acting of the dubbing voices are much worse! I once had the misfortune to see a dubbed version of Crouching Tiger on cable, and I was horrified that even that exquisitely beautiful, sad film was reduced to a farce, with laughable, horrendous dialog and acting. I wish the Skyfire version I saw on Crackle tonight had had subtitles; it would surely have been less ludicrous.

Ah, well. In addition to the many special effects, it would seem that young lovers can swim underwater (with no diving tanks) and hold their breath for at least half an hour...! I wish I could do that.

Well, this was actually an enjoyable disaster movie. I hadn't even heard about it before now in 2021 when I sat down to watch it. And I must admit that I didn't really know what to expect from the movie, so writers Wei Bu and Sidney King had every opportunity to impress me and entertain me.

And they certainly did that, because "Skyfire" turned out to be an enjoyable disaster movie, much akin to "Volcano" or "2012". So if you enjoy those kind of movies, then you most certainly will also like "Skyfire".

Sure, the movie's storyline and script was fairly predictable, if not actually generic in terms of what you'd expect from a disaster movie. But still, director Simon West managed to make it into an enjoyable journey nonetheless.

Visually then I must admit that I was definitely impressed with the effects and CGI in this 2019 movie. I do like it when disaster movies have proper CGI and special effects to carry the movie and make it presentable in an enjoyable and realistic manner. And the special effects team definitely did that with "Skyfire".

Some of the events that took place throughout the course of the movie. I mean, such as the flying chucks of molten lava that miraculously also manage to strike very close where the protagonists of the movie tend to be at any given moment in the course of the story, or the fact that a certain person was struck by a flying molten rock just as the person was waving good bye. It is stuff like that which makes for stupid moments in disaster movies, and "Skyfire" does have its share of such moments.

I found "Skyfire" to be a fast paced movie, and director Simon West did manage to keep the movie flowing at a great pace from the beginning and right up to the end.

My rating of "Skyfire" lands on a six out of ten stars. I was wholeheartedly entertained by this disaster movie. And I can warmly recommend that you sit down to watch it, should you have the chance, and especially so if you enjoy disaster movies.

Tianhuo Island is an island in the South China Sea with an active Volcano. Several years after losing her mother in a volcanic eruption, Meng Li (Hannah Quinlivan) has grown up following in her mother's footsteps to finish the Zhuque system whose purpose is to predict volcanic eruptions. Tianhuo has now become a resort destination by businessman Jack Harris (Jason Isaacs) who employs Meng as well as a tram of other volcanologists to monitor any potential disasters. When Meng's estranged father, Wentao Li (Wang Xueqi), comes to try and convince Meng to come back with him she refuses still harboring a grudge over the loss of her mother and his perceived absenteeism as a father, but eventually Tianhuo begins.

Released in 2019 after a series of delays, Skyfire from Chinese based companies Meridian Entertainment and Base FX was an attempt by the Chinese film industry to expand their reach to Western audiences in a similar fashion to how Western films have tried to reach coveted markets in Asia (especially China). When the film was shopped to international distributors at the Cannes Film Festival, producer Jennifer Dong revealed her intentions to do for Chinese disaster films what The Wandering Earth did for Chinese Science-Fiction films (with Wandering Earth currently the fifth highest grossing China production of all time). Dong further expressed intent on making Skyfire a franchise promising a trilogy of films, merchandising, and theme park attractions. While exact numbers are hard to come by, Skyfire never achieved widespread distribution in Western markets only opening at 2 theaters by Screen Media in the United States and despite debuting in China at #1 it only earned about $24 million in total (well short of the standards of The Wandering Earth). The movie itself? You'd be forgiven for thinking it's yet another cookie cutter disaster movie involving a volcano like When Time Ran Out, Dante's Peak, and Volcano, and I suppose it is, and yet the movie gets so insane with its execution I found myself thoroughly engrossed.

When the movie begins we pretty much hit all our disaster movie hallmarks. Ostentatious resort or structure just begging to be destroyed? Check. Obstacle to our protagonist motivated by maintaining image or profit? Check. Estranged family drama? Check. So you're probably wondering "what makes this so special?", well that would be in the sheer insanity in Skyfire's action sequences and leaps (sometimes literal) in logic. At about the 40 minute mark Simon West gives us non-stop crazy beginning with a scene where our main characters ride a loosened monorail car down the sheered side of the volcano and come out without a scratch on them (despite literally hovering in midair due to the fall), we have car chases with our heroes outrunning lava flows or pyroclastic clouds, heroic sacrifices that become unintentionally humorous, and a complete BS miraculous survival that'll leave you howling at the screen. At only 97 minutes the movie never overstays its welcome and it caps itself off perfectly with an ending credits that combines a music video for Jay Chou's "I Truly Believe" with behind the scenes footage showcasing the stunts and greenscreen work that went into making this movie. And if there's a better way to end a movie like this, I haven't thought of it.

Skyfire is disaster nonsense, but it's the kind of insane disaster nonsense I can't help but love. While the opening 40 minutes are pretty standard setup for a movie like this (hologram projectors notwithstanding) the remaining 50 minutes are an orgy of exaggerated volcanic destruction that'll take you back to being five years old and getting that giddy thrill of watching Twister or Dante's Peak. I'm actually kind of sad we're never going to get those Skyfire sequels now.