Nature Unleashed: Avalanche (2004)

Nature Unleashed: Avalanche is one of those films that you can occasionally see playing on the Syfy channel at around 2 AM, rounding out another marathon of disaster (both figuratively and literally) movies. If you have trouble sleeping at night, and happen to be up whenever this flick is playing, give it a watch, and I can almost guarantee that you'll soon be out for the night.Not to say that NU:A doesn't have moments of sporadic entertainment (especially since the titular menace behaves in an eerily similar fashion as the "sentient" tornadoes in the movie Twister), it's just that the package as a whole is bland and uninteresting, much like the snow-covered wastes that make up most of the scenery. Everything you could expect from a made-for-TV natural catastrophe movie is present and accounted for, so much so that even a few minor tweaks here-and-there still render it indistinguishable from the usual early Sunday-morning drivel.I could go on about the characters and plot, but it just seems kinda moot. Brothers Thom and Jock run a snowmobile rental service in Russia's Ural Mountains, a greedy developer is building a hotel on an unstable slope, and the pleas of a scarred female scientist fall on deaf and money-blinded ears, until disaster strikes! Throw in a few romantic subplots and useless fodder characters, and you get the drill.NU:A is not a terrible movie, just a very boring one. It's stoically serviceable in every way, but hardly entertaining. If you watch it every night, you'll never have trouble getting to sleep again.

I have to admit I didn't watch the beginning of or even the middle of the movie, I'm glad I didn't for fears of what it would have done to my delicate psyche. All I could think about was how horrible the acting is, I mean seriously some of the most insipid acting i've ever seen it was dull, unmotivated and completely fake i've seen more motivation in a Viagra Commericial. And did anyone NOTICE THE SNOW? Geeees, looked like confetti you bought at the Dollar Store.Anyhow seriously folks, don't waste your time on this piece of garbage.I have to say you'll leave the couch or wherever you happen to see this with a fear of horrible acting.

But it gets the job done.A bunch of characters including two brothers, the younger brother's lover, her father the developer, and an avalanche watcher start to realize a nearby peak is about to come crashing down. Trying to find a way to keep everyone safe while maintaining profit, all while overcoming their own inner drama and differences, keeps them busy for roughly an hour and a half. We get to tag along too.It basically has mediocre dialog, mediocre directing and editing, some pretty good photography, and bad acting, but it's the story that keeps this little experience interesting. In general, it's a somewhat tense countdown while the weight of the mountain starts burdening the souls of all involved. Can't say it was that bad.Obviously a big difficulty was keeping it going with limited materials, being that a few shots/ideas are re-used several times. It also has a pretty useless side-story about the developer's evil business partner that frankly only worked to use up space, then climaxed in a pretty campy shot that I won't give away. But the fact that it even had side-plots and backstory and character development is kind of commendable for the type of movie it was. So there we go. Entertainment fun-fest and all that.--PolarisDiB

This disaster flick gets an A for effort; but falls real short in the entertainment category. Some of the avalanche scenes, that weren't repeated, were impressive. The acting left a lot to be desired. Two brothers Thom(Adam Croasdell)and Jock(Andrew Lee Potts)Cussler try making a living taking tourist on adventurous snowmobile rides up and down the slopes in the Ural Mountains of Russia. An avalanche covers a small village causing Thom to risk his life in saving buried townsfolk including his brother. Air and time are running out as this lumbering snowbound drama finally ends. Also in the cast: Jessica Kate Brooks, Kate Henry, Plamen Manassiev and Nikolai Dodav.