Nature Unleashed. A disaster movie series of a limited budget but with big expectations, the fun is found picking out the goofs, the wobbly sets. the hammy script and the fun effects. At their core, however, they are true to the disaster genre and therefore should be embraced. Fire doesn’t sound quite as exciting as the rest of the series – is it too hot to trot?
Released: 2004
Runtime: 1hr 30 mins
The Premise
A forest fire started deliberately bursts out of control for four bikers and a rescue ranger who need to escape quickly.
The Disasters Faced
Fire, a madman with metal weapons, macho men on bikes trying to bully each other like schoolboys in a playground, flash fires, a dodgy elevator and a lot of methane!
The Execution
NU: Fire is motocross porn. The opening segment acts like an MTV extreme sports video where four bikers muck about doing a few tricks. Once one of them crashes a jump to impress two girls and does his leg in, a rescue officer jumps down from a helicopter and tries to lead them to safety. Sadly after various snippets of some boots wandering around, a madman from an accident involving our main hero, takes revenge on the world by setting a forest fire. Cue a lot of wandering through the jungle, everyone getting injured stupidly and recovering at random and face-offs with a madman in some awfully staged fights. It’s all very camp. It’s all over the top. It’s just hilarious. By making it oh so hammy, it works in an its-so-bad-its-good way. Watch in horror when our bloodied baddie brands a shotgun and declares he’s back! Titter as our main characters, whom all dressed in motocross power ranger costume colours so you can identify them all, argue their love interests with each other. This is love-forest! This film is best served with beer and munchies.
The Effects
The fires are well done if used sparsely. Some of the camera angles are cleverly done to make the fire look a lot closer and dangerous than it really is. This then makes some of the wider shots disorientation. It’s good that not all the fires are CGI although the smoke vastly changes shot to shot. The riders on the bikes do an excellent job too.
Why It’s Worth Watching
A hammy script that veers from schoolboy bullying with grown men to a lady that loses her boyfriend and waltz off with the male lead all within half an hour – its disaster movie by numbers – but all done with an extra slice of camp. The baddie has hissy fits, one of the girls spends most of the movie in tears, you can almost hear yourself saying “don’t go into the gassy cave with a fire in it” just knowing what’s going to happen. I have no idea why I enjoyed it so much – it really has very little in the way of redeeming features! May I need my head checked.
Drinking Game
Every time someone does something that goes against any sense of self preservation.
Best Death
Only one character dies and he manages to skid his bike into the flames and happily burns alive. He was an utter jerk throughout the film and he was the only character I knew would not make the full course of the movie. Good riddance! It was his fault they all got stuck in the forest in the first place!
Favourite Character
I have to say Bryan Genesse does a good main man, but the quiet Marcus (Ross McCall) wins as he manages to survive despite having what appears to be a broken leg at the start of the film and yet is running around saving the day by the end. Now that’s what I call character development!
Weirdest Moment
I have never seen so many miracle cures over the course of a film! These characters are gods that’s all I can say! Plus how many lives does our baddie have? Dead in the opening credits? No, no, no. Dead after being taken out by our hero? Of course not! Just call him Pussy!
Random Trivia
It’s more of a goof, but you can see the crew in all the helmets and visors throughout the film. It’s also worth noting this is part of the four-film Nature Unleashed series.
Conclusion
NU: Fire is a silly feature film. Non sensical, campy and full of a lot of low-budget amusement. If you’re a fan of bad films, grab this! Infact, get the whole Nature Unleashed series – its disaster camp gold!
I Love Disaster Movies! 