Retrospective: Crossworlds (1996)

CROSSWORLDS (1996)

A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003

Parallel universes motive is one of the more intriguing in the world
of literary science fiction. In the world of science fiction cinema this
motive is usually ignored for whole variety of reasons, most of them
having much to do with filmmakers' budgetary or creative
deficiencies. All those deficiencies become apparent when some
brave filmmaker decides to use parallel universes in their work. One
of such examples is CROSSWORLDS, 1996 science fiction film
written and directed by Krishna Rao.

The protagonist of the film is Joe Talbot (played by Josh Charles),
Californian college student in possession of crystal inherited from his
late father. This crystal turns out to be the key over the control of
various universes, and Joe becomes target of evil Warlords led by
Ferris (played by Stuart Wilson). On the other hand, Joe receives help
from beautiful Laura (played by Andrea Roth) and retired
adventurer A.T. (played by Rutger Hauer).

CROSSWORLDS has intriguing opening title and mystical prologue
promises that the rest of the film would be something quite
extraordinary. Unfortunately, as soon as plot gets set in our world's
California, even the less experienced consumers of B-movies are
going to sense that the things are starting to go downhill. The plot
and the whole mechanics of the fictional worlds are never properly
explained through the audience, and the lame attempts to pass
locations few hours of drive away from Los Angeles as alien worlds
only make this film look cheaper than usual. Production design is
even less impressive and costumes are laughable. The only nice thing
in CROSSWORLDS is look of Andrea Roth, which only underlines
some sad facts about her much better known colleagues like Rutger
Hauer and Stuart Wilson - people who deserved much better fate
than having to earn their living in uninspired pieces of genre cinema
like this one.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

Review written on November 7th 2003


Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society

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