Nature Unleashed: Fire

Excellent

Some kids are riding dirt bikes up in the forests of Northern Minnesota (well, I think Romania is filling in for Minnesota), and one of them gets hurt. A forest ranger comes to help, but an arsonist has started a series of forest fires and no matter which way they go, they're cut off from civilization. One of the bikers is an obnoxious jerk, so there's plenty of arguing between him and the ranger (The obnoxious dude comes to a fairly spectacular end). Much of the movie is spent watching people on dirt bikes ride through flames, fall down, be surrounded by flames, scream, be rescued, etc. Some parts of it are pretty cool.There's also a subplot with the arsonist, who turns into a sort of Jason Vorhees character by the end (watch the "making of" featurette, this guy is quite a character). The bikers and the ranger make their way to a mine to escape the fire, but of course the mine is full of methane gas, they have to climb over a big hole, they pretty much all have a broken leg or arm by this point, and the arsonist is attacking them. Overall, this movie just never seems to generate much excitement. Fire isn't all that exciting when seen on television, but I give them credit - they made it as exciting as anyone could have made it. When we first see it, there's a spooky haze hanging in the forest. Later on, you get the full surround-sound treatment as the blaze consumes the forest. Everywhere they go, there's big gas jets firing flames everywhere.The two girls are really cute, it's definitely got that going for it. They did a really good job with what they had to work with, all the dirt bike riding sequences are about as exciting as they possibly could have been: The people are really flying through the woods, dirt is flying, engines are howling, but how much dirt bike riding can you really watch and still be interested?You get a nice little "making of" featurette which is informative and funny. This is one of those disks that defaults to a Dolby 2.0 soundtrack. Make sure you choose the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack before you watch, it's a very nicely done surround-sound track and it adds considerably to the experience.

These Nature Unleashed films aren't exactly the gold standard of disaster movies, but this Fire entry is a darn good movie. I mean, this movie has a little bit of everything - cave-ins, deadly falls, motorcycle stunts (and accidents), fistfights, explosions, helicopter rescue missions, and of course one hell of a big fire. Heck, surviving a raging forest fire is the easy part for the poor dopes who find themselves in the wrong forest and the wrong time. There is one questionable aspect of the film, but I won't complain too much about that because it keeps things exciting all the way to the end. And the acting, particularly that of Bryan Genesse, is actually pretty good. One thing is certain: this is a much better film than  Nature Unleashed: Avalanche  and  Earthquake: Nature Unleashed .Bryan Genesse plays Jake, a forest ranger who puts the lie to any notions that forest rangers do nothing but look at trees all day. First, he narrowly escapes death trying to save some idiots looking for gold in an abandoned, condemned mine. Then, six months later, he rappels down from a helicopter to help a group of dumb kids who had egged on a biker novice to try a jump that he (and especially his now broken leg) couldn't handle. Actually, most of the blame falls on the shoulders of Marcus (Ross McCall), one of the most arrogant and self-infatuated individuals I've come across in some time. He fights Jake (both literally and figuratively) all the way as they begin to try and transport the injured Chris (Josh Cohen) out of the forest. Their overland journey is soon complicated by evidence of fire somewhere behind them, then in front of them, and then on both sides. It eventually becomes obvious that this is no natural forest fire that is inexorably trying to trap them in its midst.All kinds of great action takes place throughout the rest of the movie, as this ultimate bad day from hell just keeps throwing danger and excitement at these guys and girls. One aspect of the drama does get a little ridiculous by the end, but it makes for great drama of the "what else can go possibly go wrong?" variety. I actually thought this would be the least interesting of the Nature Unleashed movies - compared to earthquakes and avalanches, a fire almost seems mundane - but I was dead wrong on that score. If you see just one of the Nature Unleashed films, this is the one to see.

By taking on a disaster which can be circumscribed in scope the Nature Unleashed series produced a more entertaining film than most of the others. Four bikers run into trouble with one injured, a Park Ranger is frustrated in his efforts to bring him to a hospital by the failure of the lift mechanism on a Ranger helicopter, and he is forced to bring them all out on the bikes. Meanwhile, a fire bug is surrounding them with flames, making biking to safety an impossibility. Not much of a story, not much of an acting job required nor obtained. However, the fire itself co-stars ably and the simple story expedites the focus on the run to safety.This is not at all competitive with a Feature Film but makes a decent second feature for a double bill at home. Avoids being ludicrous by the absence of cataclysmic events which tend to look absurd when handled by a small scale budget.

NATURE UNLEASHED has given us avalanches, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes and now fire. This is probably the least effective of the series. The villain is a Michael Myers like creature out for revenge on the park ranger who prevented him from stealing gold from a wornout mine. The fire scenes are CGI crafted and aren't that impressive; most of the characters are cardboard and not too likeable and "star" Bryan Gennesse chews up the scenery badly. For firebugs only.