I'm on holiday this week. After not seeing the girlfriend for nigh on 7 months we took this week to catch up, have Christmas, New Year, Valentines Day... Easter... and celebrate mine and hers Birthdays... but she is away on business today and I have the place to myself for the day so I sat down and put on Nuclear Hurricane; a made for TV movie from the good folks at Regent Entertainment!
The Seaview Nuclear Powerplant on the Island of Pele is the first nuclear power facility controlled entirely by a computer! The NIC1000. Hey what could go wrong right? BUT during a investigative shut down of the backup system by technicians Linda (Jamie Luner) and Rusty (Jack Scalia), Staci, the Computer AI controlling the power plant begins to malfunction, cutting off communications to the outside, locking the occupants inside, and causing the cooling system to fail threatening a meltdown of the reactor. Meanwhile a hurricane sweeps across the ocean hitting the island and when computer programmer Erik (David Millbern), potentially the only person that can put Staci right, crashes his car in the storm, Linda, by circumventing the communications system, manages to contact her sister, and Deputy Sheriff, Susan (Meredith McGeachie) to go fetch him, but along the way whilst rescuing a pregnant lady, Jasmine (Eriko Tamura) they become stranded and have to seek refuge from the storm at a barn nearby. Meanwhile, back inside the plant, Staci traps Linda and Rusty inside the control room and after a brief adventure in the air vent network, the pair learn that Staci is treating them both as a virus that she is trying to eradicate by raising the temperature. Segway; Jasmine seemingly gives birth off screen and after dropping her off at a nearby house Susan and Erik head for the power plant. With Erik's help Linda and Rusty are able to disable the security systems trapping them in the control room and after Rusty replaces a faulty component in the reactor room things finally return to normal. But convinced that Staci was hostile all along, Linda decides that enough is enough and shuts down all power to Staci's computer system.
So it's implied throughout the film that Staci has become sentient and hostile to humanity; it's the central plot device for the entire movie really. The hurricane is just coincidental and serves only really to delay Erik getting to the power plant... and whilst Staci's hostility is hinted at in parts; she interrupts the phone conversation to HQ, she refers to Rusty and Linda as organic viruses, e.t.c it's never strictly confirmed by the film and you just sort of have to assume that Linda is right. I'm not sure if that's a limitation of the script, if it was intended, or if the writers just didn't bother fleshing that part out but the ambiguity of it damages the film really. Was Staci hostile? Was it just a malfunction? Sort of destroys the whole premise of the film...
So that gigantic nuclear torpedo to the script aside, this was... ok... just ok really... even for a TV film. There is a heavy sprinkling of corny dialogue moments, some needless unelaborated on sub-plot about Erik and Linda being separated that ultimately goes nowhere, together with an equally as needless sub-plot about Linda replacing Rusty as like, Head of the Plant or whatever, neither story lines are really developed upon and I suppose are just hamfistedly crammed in to give the characters more dimension and I guess that sort of works? There is also the mini-plot segway of Jasmine giving birth and Erik and Susan helping her with that which I genuinely think was just added in to flesh the movie out and give it more dimension. You don't even really learn Jasmine's name until like her 3rd scene.
Ironically for a film called Nuclear Hurricane, the hurricane part is purely coincidental. It's more a focus on Staci "tormenting" (and I use that phrase pretty liberally) the 2 Technicians. Nuclear Hurricane is... a stretch really... I anticipated this to be a completely bonkers over the top disaster movie about a radioactive storm wreaking havoc or something but the entire film mostly takes place inside the power plant - probably down to budgetary reasons (and I swear the keyboards in the reactor room are recycled Amiga A1200's...). And that might be for the best because the bits filmed outside during the "hurricane" were quite painful to watch as the actors mock shouted over a high wind that was obviously added in post production and the sooner those scenes were over the better...
That being said, production-wise this was mostly all competent; cinematography was fine, filming was fine, no dodgy angles or off focus shots. Some of the compositions could have been improved on but minor nit-picking point really. The acting generally, broadbrushly speaking was acceptable although it got really cheesy and amateurish in parts; especially when focusing around the sub-plots. It's obvious they were included to try and give the movie some depth but it's just difficult to sit through and I -almost immediately- just wanted them to get back on the topic of the reactor melting down. The main 4 actors, and by that I mean pretty much the entire cast... did a decent job though. Don't think any of them are going to win an Oscar for it any time soon but they worked with what they had well and in particular Jamie Luner (Linda) and Jack Scalia (Rusty) were convincing enough that you could be immersed in the narrative.
So by all accounts Nuclear Hurricane was... fine. Everything was done pretty much to the standard you could expect of it and not a single bit extra. Although, for me, the plot was under-developed and a promise of something that it ultimately wasn't. By not going all out nuts and by not going bat-shit crazy the film just feels flat, bland, and disappointing and whilst it was enjoyable enough that I didn't get bored and that it didn't feel like a chore to watch it, it didn't really excite me enough to feel like it was worth the effort. 1 out of 5 I guess?
