The Philadelphia Experiment (2012)

Occasionally, not very often but occasionally, FTW Week throws a pretty good movie at me. The Phoenix Project, Containment, err... they are the only 2 I can really think of to be honest... but sometimes it happens? And whenever it does it always feels a bit special, like unearthing a rare gem, because these movies are usually shot with fuck all budget and indie produced and as a result have flimsy licencing restrictions, which is basically how they wind up on YouTube being "Free To Watch", they are punching upwards literally from the beginning and I will tell anyone that listens how good the aforementioned films are, because they literally stand no chance of getting recognition, and they really ought to. I kinda hope today's movie is the third addition to the list. I really do. And I guess that means I'm going in with preconceptions as a result, but The Philadelphia Experiment - a alleged scientific experiment to essentially completely cloak a massive Destroyer ship that went horribly awry - is one of my favourite Wikipedia articles... what?... you don't have favourite Wikipedia articles?... Oh. So I kind of hope that this movie does it justice. I'm vaguely aware of 80's movie with the same name, but we are going in to the Direct-to-TV remake shot in 2012 staring none other than Malcolm "Caligula" McDowell himself apparently... at some point...

After an experiment by Dr Richard Falkner (Ryan Robbins) goes slightly not according to plan, Deputy Carl Reed (John Reardon) is dispatched to a civic airfield in rural Philadelphia where to his mild surprise he discovers a World War II Destroyer has nestled nicely into the tarmac of the runway... ! The USS Eldridge, subject to a top secret experiment into invisibility in 1943 now sitting in pristine condition on a Pennyslvanian runway! Carl moves in for a closer look as he phones his girlfriend Molly Gardner (Emilie Ullerup) and tells her all about it before he gets sucked into the boat and is unable to make his way out before the boat vanishes in a dazzling flash of sparks just as mysteriously as it arrives, and just as Molly arrives at the airfield to watch her boyfriend vanish. Meanwhile fresh from 1943 and wandering the modern and confusing streets of Philadelphia, one of the Eldridge's crew, Bill Gardner (Nicholas Lea) tries to make sense of how he suddenly wound up in 2012, wandering into a coffee shop that just so happens to be Molly Gardner's usual work place, before leaving and doubling over in pain as energy begins to surge again... Over in downtown Chicago, the Eldridge materialises in the middle of the air before plummeting and smashing through the first handful of floors of a skyscraper causing panic on the streets below. Back in Philadelphia, Molly returns home to find Lieutenant Bill waiting for her and he explains he is Molly's missing Grandfather but before their reunion can get fully underway they are interrupted by a phone call alerting Molly that the Eldridge just crashed into the Chicago skyline. Arriving on the scene, Dr. Falkner and Kathryn Moore (Gina Holden), who appears to be some kind of important Government Official type, eyeball the Eldridge wedged into a skyscraper for themselves before there's some lovely jargony exposition from Dr. Falkner on how it time travels, before Kathryn reveals that they have discovered Bill Gardner survived the jump, and was Chief Technician onboard the Eldridge before announcing that they intend to 'recover' him... Phew! Did you get all that? Back with Bill and Molly and Molly just so happens to be a Hacker because plot demands it, and discovers that the Navy technology on board the Eldridge was sold to Greywatch - Dr. Falkner's company, but they are interrupted by a man claiming to be from the US Government looking for Bill Gardner. As Molly takes a phone call from a suspiciously old sounding man telling her she is in grave danger, a fight breaks out between Bill and the strange Government man when he threatens Molly and getting the better of him, Molly and Bill escape heading for the place she was told to take Bill over the phone. Back in Chicago, for some reason Kathryn decides to send soliders into the Eldridge... with guns....? Because America and despite being warned that the ship is about to jump through time again, she orders them to press on anyway and they reach the ship just in time for a massive energy shockwave to engulf them and a handful of onlookers on the ground, taking everybody with it through time. As Dr. Falkner and Kathryn debate on what to do next - Kathryn's very American solution of 'just blow it up' being the obviously stupidest course of action... Molly and Bill arrive at their intended location to discover a very much still alive Morton Salinger (Malcolm McDowell) who reveals he faked his own death to avoid working with Greywatch on revitalising his old time travel program. He reveals that Bill is bonded with the ship and it's generator and that Bill needs to get back on the Eldridge as he's the only one who can shut it down. Back with Kathryn and she very loudly reveals that the shady Government man from earlier is a chap called Hagan (Michael Paré) tasked with bringing in Bill Gardner and now Morton Salinger alive, or dead if necessary, which rubs up Dr. Falkner the wrong way. Mostly because it's absolutely nonsensically insane... like why? So far her approach has been: blow up the Eldridge and kill everybody that was on it... Bill, Molly and Morton are making their way to his lab when they are found and pursued by Hagan and his men. In the resulting car chase Morton is shot but, after losing their pursuers is just able to pass on to the pair that they need to make their way to an institute named after him where somebody there will help them further. Dr. Falkner, learning that Bill and Molly will likely be making their way to the Salinger Institute, sneaks out and disappears heading that way alone, whilst back inside Kathryn and her team figure out that the Eldridge will materialise in the middle of the Sahara desert and when it does, they try bombing it because of course they do but it has no effect and instead just creates a shockwave that destroys the jets. At the Salinger Institute, Bill and Molly arrive to find the place deserted and it's employees all murdered. But just as they arrive Hagan and his men storm the building shooting at the pair and it transpires the same energy field protecting the ship also protects Bill. Using some kind of feedback power he his able to fire back, and after dispatching Hagar and the goons, he and a slightly injured Molly, who got caught in the crossfire, get rescued by Dr. Falkner arriving on the scene just in time. They make a plan to bring the Eldridge to them by using Greywatch's technology and after arriving back at their lab and successfully carrying out a transition, Bill begins to make his way to the ship. As he does in bursts Kathryn and Hagan with his hired goons who take Dr. Falkner and Molly hostage whilst Hagan sets out to find Bill. Kathryn announces her plan to nuke the facility because... it worked so well the last time... before putting a bullet in Dr. Falkner for "moving" to cement her being really bad at this and stuff. Meanwhile, Bill makes it back on board the Eldridge but is running out of time as the ship begins to phase again. He tracks down Carl - yeah remember him? - who has been fused with one of the ships bulkheads, but using his power is able to free him, and he sends him on his merry way before making his way to the control room. However waiting for him inside is Hagan who wants to kill him for some... reason... and a punch up breaks out. Meanwhile back inside the lab, Molly turns the tables on Kathryn and puts a bullet in her belly for good measure, giving a severely injured Dr. Falkner just enough time to tell Molly to find Carl and get out of there. Inside the ship Carl springs to Bill's rescue and the pair manage to overcome Hagan long enough for Bill to use his power to literally fuse Hagan to the side of the boat. Making his way out of the ship, Carl and Molly reunite outside and just make it out of the building in time to watch as the Eldridge crashes through the roof and into the wormhole created to return it to it's original time and in doing so zapping the Governments Stealth Bomber and presumably the nuke, into oblivion. In the closing scene, Molly returns home one day, now married to Carl to her Grandpa who, as a result of their actions altering history survived the Eldridge incident after all...

I will credit these Direct-to-TV movies for one thing if nothing else, there is certainly alot of action crammed in! Or at least there is in the ones I pick. Like, every minute in this movie was dedicated to contributing to the next 'thing' that was going on. They didn't let up the whole run time! It's just 1 hour 25 odd minutes of stuff happening. And to a degree that's a good thing because it keeps you engaged, and I guess that's kind of the point, but you do kinda get action fatigue from it. And it does start to feel a bit much. You barely get a moment to digest what just unfolded before they move on to the next plot point. I've seen it in other ones before this, so not just this one, but it was very much a part of this movie. Just stuff after stuff after stuff happening. No time to evaluate on the last plot point, move on to the next one.

Acting here was a bit of a mixed bag. I thought Nicholas Lea as Bill and Emilie Ullerup were both pretty decent. Far too good to be in these Made for TV nonsense. Similarly Ryan Robbins as Dr. Falkner was alright as well although his amateurism shined through on a couple of occasions but he was mostly alright. Conversely though, there was some pretty corny performances with it. I felt like Gina Holden was massively mis-cast as this movies 'villian'. She did not look one bit natural in the role at all and was very cliché, very uncomfortable and a bit embarrassing. Similarly Michael Paré as the generic bad guy mercenary was incredibly wooden and vanilla. There was a brief cameo from Michael McDowell and whilst this probably won't go down as some of his finest work, he was mostly alright really for the 10 minutes that he featured!

Special Effects-wise I thought this movie did a pretty decent job! Especially for a low budget TV movie. The ship looked like a ship and not just some terribly copy and pasted CGI and the whole electricity arcing effects and stuff were pretty decent. There was a coupe of slightly amateur moments but on the whole I thought the special effects were good! I've certainly watched similar calibre movies with alot worse. Even some of the practical effects were decent; the shipmates fused with the bulkheads on the boat looked genuine and the set design equally was decent. If it was mostly just labs and the boat. It looked like the interior of a boat if it wasn't actually a boat itself!

It was with the storyline really though that I felt this movie really let itself down and whilst I was happy enough that there was enough going on and there was a pretty decent plot structured around Bill Gardner fleeing the ship and then having to work his way back, there was just some plot decisions that made no logical sense. Even in the context of the movie. It wasn't really explained why the Government were trying to kill him? They just were because it makes the movie more exciting... and some of the decisions Kathryn Moore made throughout the film just made no fucking sense? But existed purely because it gave the movie more tension. And it really felt like it cheapened it out and, to a degree, was a bit intelligence insulting. The motives of Kathryn and the Government just made no fucking sense. Dialogue was chock full of cheesy and corny lines too, lots of trailer bait like "you are going to destroy the whole fabric of space and time!" and similar dramatic statements. 

Otherwise, everything else was decent enough. It had this great B-movie trope where there is constantly a dramatic soundtrack playing throughout the whole thing. I kid you not I think save for a couple of scenes there is the same tension building music playing throughout the entire film! I'll be honest, I kinda like it now. It's grown on me. And Cinematography wise, everything was fine there. There was a couple of moments that were shot pretty creatively and enough effort was put in to at least make it a competently shot movie. Can't think of any moments really where any kind of unprofessionalism leaked through, it was all pretty on par.

So this was a decent, if not slightly liberty taking, depiction surrounding the theory of the Philadelphia experiment and although there was some decent acting, some nice special effects and plenty of action to keep you interested, it didn't really elevate itself much beyond being a pretty regular TV movie. Save for a very uncomfortable main 'villain' and a very generic bad guy, some slightly cheesy and corny dialogue and at points some totally nonsensical plot developments, there wasn't really anything else beyond that that was particularly bad. It did get very action-by-numbers and was a pretty predictable, tropey affair but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least interested in seeing how it played out and for the most part it was enjoyable enough. It was very much a great example of a Direct-to-TV movie though and all of the pitfalls that come with that so yeah, I couldn't really grade this much above a 2 out of 5 unfortunately. Soz.