Tidal Wave: No Escape (1997)

I'm finally getting round to putting up the next review, and continuing with the water trend we have 'Tidal Wave: No Escape', which is effectively the title and tagline of the last film I reviewed.

'Tidal Wave: No Escape' follows John Wahl (Corbin Bernsen), a surfer who just happens to be an ex-Homeland Security agent, who is called in by his former employers to help consult on why there have been two tidal waves so close to each other. While I was thinking that earthquakes are random and there's no real way of predicting them, therefore it was just a coincidence, but talk of someone actually creating these tidal waves comes up. Apparently it's that option. What follows is a cat and mouse game between Homeland Security, Wahl and his love interest Julianne (Jessica Weaver), and the...tidal wave creator.

I have to say this because it was the first thing that popped up in this film, besides the opening kill people. There are HORRIBLE green screen effects. And I really do mean horrible, they are literally the worse I have ever seen. Well, maybe 'Pulse 3' had worse. But the green screens in this truly are awful, laughable really, especially when you see the initial tidal wave and the news report that follows. Then there's the obvious stock footage.

That being said, the effects for the actual tidal wave aren't actually that bad. It might be a combination of the year, budget and the fact that this was a TV production, but yeah, they weren't that bad. The main problem was when the wave interacted with  other things, like the coast. That being said the effects aren't great either, especially the so called nuclear weapons.

Wait, I just realised something, at numerous points the villain mentions how many Allied soldiers could have been saved if they had used a man-made tidal wave to clear the beaches first. However in order to generate a tidal wave, they need to use a nuclear weapon, and the atom bomb wasn't invented until after the D-Day landings....what was your motive again? No seriously, what was it? Firstly the villain is pointed out with ease since he keeps mentioning D-Day and there's only person in the film old enough to have been there. Secondly, the villain mentions they could have saved lives on D-Day, so he kills thousands of innocent people? What the Hell was your motive? Apart from "One billion dollars!"? I need to watch this film again to see if there was an actual motive.

Then again there's other stupid stuff to worry about. Firstly, when you see a tidal wave come towards you, do you: A) Drive away from it inland, or B) Drive alongside it? If you selected B congratulations! You're as stupid as the main character! We also have a tidal wave that can knock over a cruise liner-turned-hotel with ease but a few seconds ago failed to destroy a small boat, and tidal waves which fail to obey nature. And a timer which keeps resetting.

And then we have the acting. In it's defence the film does not have big name actors, obviously, but the actors they did have did an alright job. Nothing spectacular, but nothing really that bad. The only thing that really holds them back is the fact that the characters hardly have any development, they're all stuck in the same one dimensional form. Really the only character I liked the sounds of was the villain when he was still anonymous, though this did backfire when it was finally confirmed who the anonymous villain was, because it doesn't make sense when you look back at the info the characters gave about him.

The thing is though, this isn't really a bad film. Well, okay it is a bad film, but in all honesty, for what it is, it is still quite enjoyable. It definitely has its flaws, but when you watch it you do tend to forget about them. You end up getting sucked into the film, you end up being drawn into the story. This is effectively one of those bad films which is so bad it's good. Again, for what the film is, a low budget production with (Overall) mediocre effects, decent acting and an okay storyline, it's quite enjoyable.