Everybody loves a disaster movie right? Skyfire is the latest addition to the genre. If exploding volcanos are your thing and the idea of Lucius Malfoy running around spouting a South African accent are your idea of fun you have come to the right place as Skyfire is THE one.
2020 has turned out to be one great big disaster movie, but as we reach the tail end of the year. Simon West has arrived with Skyfire, which is one of the single most enjoyable disaster movies you will have watched in a fair while. A geologist and her father race against time to save lives when a volcano erupts on a tropical island in the South China Sea. Which is the basic premise and lets be honest, with these films you are not looking for a huge amount of plot, just get to the disaster and the fallout. Which Skyfire does at a rapid pace.
It’s such a shame the characters aren’t self aware enough to realise they are in a disaster movie. It’s been decided to build a theme park on top of a ‘dormant’ volcano that years earlier erupted, killing the protagonist Li Xiao Meng (Hannah Quinlivan) mother and driving a wedge between her and her father Wentao Li (Wang Xueqi). Xiao is now working as site geologist with some new fangled technoology that detects the volcanos current status. And the current status is that things aren’t looking too good and despite warning owner Jack Harris (Jason Isaacs) that bad things are going to happen, he ignores it because the science is being provided as hunch rather than in data form (Also, it doesn’t help he owes a bunch of money so therefore unless disaster looms he’s keeping it open no mater what). Then guess what? Bad things happen the volcano erupts and literally the sky turns to fire as ash and molten lava reign down on the island and all the tourists and staff.
Let’s be honest there’s nothing original here, all the disaster tropes are in place and its got more than shades of Jurassic Park colliding with the Towering Inferno. But thats what makes it so much fun. You need to have your disaster movie bingo card to hand as you mark off who’s making it out alive and who isn’t. Impatient and stupid member of the public dies stupidly while not following the plan… check. The person who put the stupid plan together… check. The family torn apart but brought back together after years by the situation… check. Rock ballad over the end of the movie… check. and so forth. But Simon West handles it so well. Despite the movie being mostly subtitled, it proves that the film is fantastic as you don’t really require them to understand what’s going on.
Despite Jason Issacs predominantly being used in the UK marketing for Skyfire the film doesn’t really star him. obviously it’s being used for the Western audiences as the Chinese cast for anyone outside of Asia are probably not going to know who the various actors are. However, Quinlivan has huge star potential globally on this showing. Seen in the west in The Rock’s 2018 Skyscraper as the villainous Xi, studios could do with getting her some bigger roles and soon. Already a massive star in Asia, the Taiwanese Australian could make major waves over here very soon.
But overall sit back, buckle up and enjoy the trill ride as everyone tries to escape the burning island. Dante’s Peak and Volcano movie over, there’s a new king of eruption in town.
Skyfire is available on is out on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Monday 23rd November.
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