Yet another indistinguishable sci-fi thriller from the reliable Rutger Hauer, who once again is the best thing in this film which substitutes oodles of action in place of a real script. This is a shame, because the film's plot is quite an interesting and original one, and they just don't make enough films about alternate realities these days. CROSSWORLDS comes off as an empty, wasted opportunity which could have been like THE MATRIX: an intelligent, science fiction thriller with great action, but instead turns out to be another forgettable B-movie with nothing much to distinguish it from many others.
The cast is probably a big problem in this film; the majority of them are hopeless. Rutger Hauer once again finds himself typecast as an ageing mentor-type bloke who acts as the film's indestructible hero; opposing him is the British villain Stuart Wilson whose ham just doesn't cut it. Josh Charles (a young, untalented Ted Raimi lookalike) acts as the film's audience, finding himself caught up in the unexplained events; his dim-witted, moaning character soon becomes grating, which is a shame because he dominates every scene. If Charles had been a little bit more heroic instead of acting like an idiot all the time, this film might have been easier to bear.
Don't get me started on Andrea Roth's performance of the female lead, either; she's just been put there for the purpose of "eye-candy" and is pretty hopeless. Also appearing is a dwarf sidekick who disintegrates in one of the film's more impressive special effects scenes, while modern cinema goers might get a kick from seeing a pre-fame Jack Black before he went on to bigger (although not necessarily better) things.
The script gives our lead characters ample room for situation comedy, which soon becomes boring. It also centres heavily around action and has only a few major plot points to string along. Many things that happen are left unexplained and are confusing. This film's action is also below-average; endless scenes of suited men running around with Uzis are silly in the extreme and make a mockery of the whole film. Also, due to the PG-13 rating in America, there aren't even any on screen deaths or violence to speak of, only of the bizarre computer-generated variety.
Which leads me to the special effects, which are as cheap and cheerful as you might expect. Some of them appear to have been stolen from the television series SLIDERS. None of them convince for an instant, as they just look like they've been drawn up on a computer, and they're pretty nondescript too; pretty rings appear on screen, people vanish and appear, and only one scene stands out as impressive: two characters falling from a roof turn into "pixels" about halfway down, which then tinkle down onto the pavement. The one impressive action scene, at the very end, when our hero battles the chief villain across a variety of locations, has also been ripped off from SHOCKER. In all, while CROSSWORLDS isn't the worst film ever made, I for one would certainly give it a miss.
The cast is probably a big problem in this film; the majority of them are hopeless. Rutger Hauer once again finds himself typecast as an ageing mentor-type bloke who acts as the film's indestructible hero; opposing him is the British villain Stuart Wilson whose ham just doesn't cut it. Josh Charles (a young, untalented Ted Raimi lookalike) acts as the film's audience, finding himself caught up in the unexplained events; his dim-witted, moaning character soon becomes grating, which is a shame because he dominates every scene. If Charles had been a little bit more heroic instead of acting like an idiot all the time, this film might have been easier to bear.
Don't get me started on Andrea Roth's performance of the female lead, either; she's just been put there for the purpose of "eye-candy" and is pretty hopeless. Also appearing is a dwarf sidekick who disintegrates in one of the film's more impressive special effects scenes, while modern cinema goers might get a kick from seeing a pre-fame Jack Black before he went on to bigger (although not necessarily better) things.
The script gives our lead characters ample room for situation comedy, which soon becomes boring. It also centres heavily around action and has only a few major plot points to string along. Many things that happen are left unexplained and are confusing. This film's action is also below-average; endless scenes of suited men running around with Uzis are silly in the extreme and make a mockery of the whole film. Also, due to the PG-13 rating in America, there aren't even any on screen deaths or violence to speak of, only of the bizarre computer-generated variety.
Which leads me to the special effects, which are as cheap and cheerful as you might expect. Some of them appear to have been stolen from the television series SLIDERS. None of them convince for an instant, as they just look like they've been drawn up on a computer, and they're pretty nondescript too; pretty rings appear on screen, people vanish and appear, and only one scene stands out as impressive: two characters falling from a roof turn into "pixels" about halfway down, which then tinkle down onto the pavement. The one impressive action scene, at the very end, when our hero battles the chief villain across a variety of locations, has also been ripped off from SHOCKER. In all, while CROSSWORLDS isn't the worst film ever made, I for one would certainly give it a miss.