Customer Reviews

Toxic Skies

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Toxic Skies is one of those straight-to-video movies that is a step above most Redbox fare. For being a low budget film shot in Canada, this movie has great cinematography and editing. Kevin Blumenfeld also did a top-notch job with the movie's score.

Canadian director Andrew C. Erin doesn't have many movies under his belt, but he's definitely talented. I had seen his directing work before in Tornado Valley, only he's working with a better cast in this film. Anne Heche gives a solid performance as Dr. Tess Martin, a virologist struggling to discover the truth behind a deadly illness. Daniel Bacon also shines as Dr. Raj Patel, her friend and fellow physician.

So why give a film with a solid cast and great directing only three stars? The story is lacking. Toxic Skies cobbles a few elements from the movie "Outbreak", particularly why it becomes personally important for Tess to quickly discover a cure. On one hand, I give Andrew Erin credit for choosing such an original danger (chemtrails), but the movie isn't as suspenseful as it could have been. The film touches on an important motivation of Tess' physician work, yet never returns to it. There just seemed like great potential for backstories, or learning more about the two main doctors in general.

Toxic Skies is definitely worth watching once, before you decide whether or not to buy the DVD. With the cast and cinematography, I think it had the potential of a five-star film, if only the writing had been better. It's still an under the radar movie that's worth checking out.

This was a pretty good movie, not great, but good. There was a lot more conspiracy than I thought there would be. I'd maybe buy it, if it was a REALLY good price, but even then....I don't know.

If you have a shred of disease knowledge, do not watch this movie; the inaccuracies will ruin it.

The acting was as decent as the writing allowed it to be, and that's the most positive thing I can say about it (and what earned it its second star).

The disease in question is plague. A simple google search would have told the author that plague is a bacterium (yersinia pestis), not a virus, yet they keep referring to it as a virus, while trying to treat it with antibiotics (which are used against bacteria).

The "plague" is made significant since there are metals with it that are reducing people's immune systems. This should strike you as ridiculous. A disease can be infectious because it replicates (a little bit inside you can turn into a whole bunch inside you). Toxic metals don't replicate, so if an sick person infects a healthy one with a small scratch, the metals would be too diluted to have the same effect (especially through serial hosts).
The premise of the conspiracy was equally laughable, but I won't go on.

In short, if you want a conspiracy movie, and won't be distracted by abysmal scientific inaccuracies, this is decently acted and directed.

I'm not going to judge the whys or attempt to analyze the events, only to note that the career of Anne Heche is certainly one that remains memorable for its incredible downward spiral. Despite her talent, which in my opinion is still considerable, this is one of the best examples I can think of when someone denies there's a conspiracy within Hollywood's surprisingly cloistered mental and political compound. And for a talented actress once teamed with Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp, punishment for "breaking the rules" is meted out with projects like this.

It's stunning irony that the very industry that proudly decries The Blacklist, used against creators like Dalton Trumbo and Lionel Stander, willingly continues to do so on the sly against current artists they deem "inappropriate". Will they feel shame 40 years down the road? I think so.

My hope is that there will be another Tarantino, a renegade filmmaker who will scoop from the so-called bottom and uplift solid talents, bringing them back into the light. Not so much rescuing careers, as acknowledging and revealing the new Hollywood shame and hypocrisy.

'Skies' is essentially a SciFi Saturday filler. The day they set aside for their Disaster & Creature Weekends, fairly innocuous direct-to-video cheapies that offer the gamut of disasters, aliens and monsters. Sometimes, like this flick, a government conspiracy.

Tells the story of medical researchers and doctors who are battling a new plague - but whose origins seem to be less biologically based and more chemical; less a natural mutation of a known disease and one more likely linked to an artificial source.

A bulldog reporter and brilliant physician seem to be working toward the same conclusion - that the government is collaborating with various chemical companies for a sinister purpose. I won't spoil the reason for those interested in viewing the production.

There are standard fare action elements that Director Andrew Erin is attempting, including the '24' multiple shot composition. But the flick's timing is molasses slow and, ultimately, wasted effort. Sadly, one of the key 'characters', the disease itself, seems to be a background player when it should've been one of the leads. It's not all that expensive to show people collapsing, blood being vomited, scared and terrified medical personnel refusing to go into trauma centers, etc, etc. But that dramatic energy is only hinted at, not delved into. Definitely a missed opportunity.

Interesting premise unfortunately told on multiple doses of Valium. Slow, slow, slow. The movie endless drags out the story and cannot gain traction. Much tighter editing and this might've worked. It happens every blue moon that a SciFi Saturday Special hits the target. But not this time.

I thought I heard Jack tell Dr Tess Martin to get on I-90 and head south. Hello? I-90 goes east and west. If you want to go south on an Interstate highway in Seattle, you need I-5. I know that and I live in Ohio!

The synopsis also says that the doctor's son has been infected. Video cues suggest that she envisioned someone near and dear to her on a gurney, but it was a vision and not reality.

Still, overall it's a decent flick.

Chemtrails are real! Take a look at the skies often and watch your lawn for thin fibers like cob webs all over the place on chemtrail spraying days. It's REAL and this movie is a WARNING! Wear surgical face-masks and when people ask you why you wear a mask, tell them why. Confront your government now. Search "chemtrails" on Google and on Youtube.