Well, that was an absolute blast! (Pun intended.) Skyfire, China’s first big budget disaster movie, with it’s parade of good looking local stars, adequate visual effects, Jason Isaacs sporting a ridiculous South African accent, and even a Jay Chou musical number over the end credits, was everything that I expected and exactly what I needed.
It’s silly. It’s earnest. It’s got some great set pieces (one in particular involves passengers leaping from one cable car to another, in mid-air, while trying to avoid the giant pylons that are zooming past). It’ll remind you that movies can, and should, also be gratuitous thrill rides. Basically, this movie is a lot of fun.
Note: I should point out that the only reason I bought this movie was because I had read that it was shot, on location, right here in Malaysia. So it was an added bonus seeing all those Malaysian names in the credits.
Skyfire is generic in every way. It features all the hallmarks that you’ve come to expect from this sort of movie. The vainglorious tycoon who refuses to listen to experts? Check. The action hero scientist who has a strained relationship with a parent? Check. Dead mother? Check. An adorable little girl who can seemingly cry on command? Check. It is paint by numbers. It does exactly what it says on the tin.
That said, director Simon West (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and most importantly, Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up music video) isn’t here to piss on your leg and tell you that it’s raining. He knows what this movie is. He knows he isn’t making Schindler’s List. (Hell, he isn’t even making The Day After Tomorrow.) He’s here because someone gave him a lot of money to blow shit up. And so he doubles down on the cheese, ramps up the emotion, and has some fun.
Listen. I’ve seen Volcano and Dante’s Peak. I was stranded in Europe when Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010. I know that ash can mess up airplane engines and car radiators. I know what pyroclastic clouds are. I know that lava is bad. Simon West knows that I know this and so he dispenses with all of that unnecessary exposition and just gets on with it.
We progress through the plot of this movie in very short order. Skyfire is still very much about the folly of man who, in all of his arrogance, believes that he has dominion over nature. Jason Isaacs’ Jack Harris has basically built himself a five star resort and theme park at the base of an active volcano. (If that isn’t a dumber idea than building a Jurassic Park, I don’t know what is.) He thinks that the next eruption isn’t due for another 150 years. The volcanologists are pretty sure it’s going to happen 10 minutes after he makes that claim. He’s wrong. The experts are right. Uh-oh. Boom. After which, it’s a non-stop race against time to outrun lava flows, rescue villagers, and mend familial bonds.
There are, however, two things that make Skyfire stand out from an otherwise indistinguishable set of movies.
The first is that it gives us a believable female action hero to root for. Xiao Meng (Hannah Quinlivan), the quick tempered volcanologist at the centre of the action, can just as easily create a new system to detect volcanic eruptions as she can climb out of a moving jeep and kick loose a burning jerrycan. She is positively watchable.
The second is that it lacks any of the cynicism that has become commonplace in many Hollywood disaster movies.
Ever since the 1970s, ever since Airport, Hollywood has been feeding us a steady diet of disaster movies. Be they monsters or zombies, asteroids or aliens, dinosaurs, volcanoes, or pandemics, we have always been drawn to the fantastic cataclysms that these movies put forward, not because of the death and destruction, but because of the hope that they offered. They are proof that we can endure the worst possible circumstances and still come out on top. They are proof of humanity’s immortality.
While the popularity of the genre has waxed and waned over the decades, the disaster movie has nevertheless remained a part of our pop-culture cycle. Over the years, in a quest to inject some pathos (and originality) into the genre, Hollywood has tried to make these movies speak to great deal of contemporary issues, from our post-9/11 anxieties (that remain rooted in a fear of exploding national landmarks) to that perennial terror of a global outbreak. But by doing so, they have also unwittingly made these movies a lot more cynical. The disaster movie was always supposed to be about our ability to survive. These days, it’s more about ending the world so we’d get a clean slate and the chance for a do-over.
Skyfire, with its simplistic message of hope and love, where no one gives up, where smart people come out on top, and where the right people save the day, is exactly the kind of catharsis we need right now.
With Chinese audiences singlehandedly propping up the box-office for these sorts of genre films, it was only a matter of time before they started making their own big budget versions. God knows we’re probably going to see a lot more of these in the years to come. And I really don’t mind the occasional escape that these movies provide.
Skyfire is junk food. It’s greasy. It’s plastic. It’s full of all the things you shouldn’t put inside your body. But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t fill a hole.
Skyfire
93 minutes
Director: Simon West
Writers: Wei Bu and Sidney King
Cast: Wang Xueqi, Hannah Quinlivan, Shawn Dou, An Bai, Lingchen Ji, Liang Shi, and Jason Isaacs
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