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The wars of the near future are not fought by boots on the ground
anymore, not even by a massive air force or drone strikes, but by pure
science. And recently, the CIA has found out that a terrorist organisation
has found a way to control the weather and earthquakes via manipulating
the magnetism of the atmosphere. And now these terrorists want to use this
knowledge to destroy California. This in turn leaves the CIA with little
choice but to pretty much force a team of crack scientists into their
employ, scientists who can create a counter-measure - but who also
know this way they would just leave the most powerful weapon on earth
(controlling the weather and creating natural disasters) in the hands of
someone else - it's a no-win situation, so the scientists agree. Among
the scientists there is one problem child though, Jan (Catalina
Soto-Aguilar) - sure, she's brilliant and nowadays she's as honest, as
dedicated to the group and even to her country as everybody else, and her
love to her fellow brilliant scientist Jack (John DeLong), but in the past
she hasn't always played by the rules and has stolen some magnets
essential to their work now from some shady sources ... and by now these
"shady sources" are apparently in league with the terrorists,
and they want their magnets back to prevent a counter attack - and thus
they send their most sadistic henchmen Jamal (Philip Fornah) and Maxine
(Allison Smith) out to retrieve them at any cost ... and soon enough, Jan
and her best friend/fellow scientist Maryanne (Christine Kozlowski) are
kidnapped and stashed away in an abandoned mine wearing nothing but their
pjs until Jan's ready to cooperate. The CIA sends their top man, Tom
Jones (Adam Cardon), after Jamal and Maxine to free the woman, but he has
fallen in love with Jan, which might cloud his judgment, while back in the
lab, Jack is driven crazy with worry about Jan, but in order to save
California and maybe the country as a whole, he's forced to focus on his
work exclusively. What's worse is of course, our scientist heroes are
unable to counter the terrorist's weather-weapon without Jan's input ...
so is there any chance at all California will survive to see another day? There
are no two ways about it, The Phoenix Rises is an exciting and
intelligent sci-fi thriller, it's well-paced, well-executed, its
scientific basis might be little more than gobbledegook but it's at least
sold in a way that makes it believable for the duration of the movie, and
what the movie lacks in actual action and special effects it makes up in
interesting editing, well executed flashbacks and the like. That said, The
Phoenix Rises is not the perfect sci-fi thriller, it's budget is just
a tad too low to tackle a story of the movie's magnitude, some of the
effects that are used are a bit on the cheesy side, and some of the
subplots in the movie just seem to lead to nowhere. That's not to say
the film's a failure, not even close, it's a valid attempt to make
something big with little in terms of funds, and while it doesn't succeed
100%, it's still a very watchable film.
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