Fireball (2009)

After his incarceration and attempted murder behind bars, ex-professional football player Tyler Draven (Aleks Paunovic) discovers he has the ability to shoot fire from his body and sets out to avenge himself against his offenders. Now it's up to a fire investigator (Lexa Doig) and a federal agent (Ian Somerhalder) to douse Draven's flames for good before he incinerates the whole city.

Unfortunately this film never lives up to the comic book-like plot's potential after an exciting opening "what's to come" sequence, which shows Draven using his full inferno ability in action. After that scene, lots of setup exposition details why Draven was banned from pro football before he goes ape shit on an annoying stalker beat writer at a gas station. You'd figure that these events would be fast-forwarded so we can get right to the fun and action, right? Um not at all. It was more like a hurry up and wait approach as the film begins in first gear and remains there for the film's entirety. The slow pace is not the only thing that sinks this one though.

Fans of Somerhalder (even Diaries diehards) are going to be disappointed as well. Even though he acts as snarky as usual while exercising his eyebrow flexibility, he appears really bored. The female lead Doig seems bored. In fact, everyone in this film seems completely and utterly bored. If the filmmakers were trying to create a love angle for Somerhalder and Doig, that was a failure to the utmost degree. They appeared to hate each other...like they hated each other so much off camera that they could not get over acting otherwise towards each other on screen. That might not be the case, but it sure seemed like it.

The antagonist Paunovic tries extremely hard in his scenes, but even his character, who can shoot fireballs and blow people up, is boring. And this is a major problem. On paper, the character of Draven has roots in his back story and resulting evil special abilities that elevate him to the status of  a can't-miss supervillain prospect. But that prospect never materializes. Paunovic is the real star of the film, but the dull dialogue he has to spout does not give him much to enforce his character's badassness. Essentially he becomes a lame villain who shoots fire that is about as intimidating as a sheet of loose leaf. Every time I think of the word fireball, I think of the asshole that burnt down the Alpha Beta house in the original Revenge of the Nerds. His character was written with more menace than Draven.

After my screening, I learned that Fireball was originally a SyFy production. This explains a lot of the issues mentioned above, but does not excuse them except the budget. We see as much fireballin' as the producers could afford with their cap span and that aspect is fine. However, the brooding pace, dull action sequences, mind-numbing dialogue, and lack of enthusiasm from the cast is not what an action sci-fi film is supposed to deliver to that particular fanbase. All of these problems combined makes the viewer bored and getting to the end of the film a task rather than a treat.

Speaking of the ending, I am at a complete loss for words. Not sure what they were trying to do, but there was no closure in our central characters' relationships or futures. Maybe that was the bad dialogue and uninspired acting rearing their weary heads one last time? The scene is just so awkward and difficult to explain, but trust me that it was odd and felt put of place. I am sure other viewers of this movie felt the same way...if they made it that long before giving up.

Unless you are a Ian Somerhalder uber fan or a SyFy Origi-holic, your time could be spent better elsewhere. It is too bad, because this flick had surprisingly cheesy fun written all over it. 

Rating: 1 out of 5 Creeper Santas