To be released on November 4th is a sci-fi time travel film starring Golden Globe nominee Jason Priestley ("Beverly Hills 90210') and Lou Diamond Phillips ("La Bamba" and "Stand and Deliver") featured in an action-driven storyline about a rogue scientist, Dr. Daniel Winter (Phillips) who has disappeared with a classified time-travel device and hides it in an airliner in which special agent Caleb Smith's (Priestley) family is on.
As Caleb and his family prepare to go on a family vacation, Caleb is called on an emergency to apprehend Dr. Winter (not knowing that Winter boarded the plane that he was just on). Winter must be found at all cost or their will be repercussions due to a potential time shift which can destroy the Earth and also the galaxy. But Caleb realizes that Dr. Winter has been planning to be on the same plane as his family all along and thus Caleb does what he can to protect his family.
But the situation goes awry when the President of the United States doesn't want to risk the lives of millions of Americans and is willing to destroy the airliner carrying dozens of Americans. Thus, two fighter jets are sent in to destroy the airliner.
As Caleb pleads with the agency to have the jets back off, the jets fire their missiles. But a second before impact, Dr. Winter activates the transporter. With Caleb feeling that his family is dead, he goes to the wreckage site but is shocked to find out that the plane wreckage was found the day before. He's confused since the flight just left hours ago and realizes that there is more to the story than his agency wants to tell him. But learns that his family may still be alive but not in the present but somewhere near this vortex that has suddenly emerged on top of the planet.
With only two remote devices able to control the transportation device, one is kept with Winter and another is somewhere. While Caleb looks for the second controller, unbeknown to him is that there are people in his own agency working against him and want to use the device for their own personal agenda.
The race begins to find the controller before his enemies do or else, the growing vortex will continue to kill people but also possibly absorb the whole planet and possibly the galaxy.
Will Caleb be able to save his wife and daughter and the passengers of the airline from destruction? Will he be able to find the controller in time?
"Termination Point" has an interesting concept in regards to transportation and time travel. As Dr. Winter uses lab rats as tests to transport the animals from point A to point B, he has never used the device on something as large as an airliner.
The science fiction aspect comes in the fact that when Winter uses the device, the airliner and those that are alive somehow stay inside this vortex of space where they are about to get sucked up and die. And somehow, they are taken back in time.
Although you have the sci-fi aspect of the film with Dr. Winter and the people stuck on the airliner inside a space in time, you get this other storyline in a "24' type of storyline with agent Caleb Smith and a few people in the agency that he trust and together working against the clock to find the second controller and save the world.
The film does have it's flaws. Somehow there are just some scenes that somewhat damper the naturalness of the film. Jason Priestley convincingly does a good job as a special agent and Lou Diamond Phillips does a good job as a scientist but you get some editing that just seems out of place at times. But the problematic situations in the film are more of the scenes that focus on the airliner, the jets, the vortex as it shoots out electricity destroying buildings and zapping people.
For one, there's only so much CG can do, especially depending on whatever budget there was for the film. The CG or actual models of the airliner, military planes and the vortex zapping up buildings really look like model toys. The vortex was a nice sci-fi spin but when the film overly uses images of the plane and jets flying, it looks so unnatural because they look like toys.
When the vortex zaps the buildings, you would expect to see rocks and rubble but of course, with what they were able to do for this film was to create the rubble via CG and it looks more like polygons flying out than rubble.
AUDIO & VIDEO:
Video is featured ala anamorphic widescreen (1:85:1) and audio is featured in English 5.1 (Dolby Digital)l)
SPECIAL FEATURES:
"Termination Point: Behind the Scenes" featurette includes interviews with both Jason Priestley, Lou Diamond Phillips and co-stars and the director Jason Bourque. You learn a bit about why these two took the role and how they have a long time friendship for over 15 years.
All in all, "Termination Point" was a fun film and it was definitely interesting to see Jason Priestley as a special agent and convincingly does a good job as a Jack-Bauer-ish type of character. The same with Phillips as the brainiac scientist.
Personally, because of the 24-ish style of storyline, I can almost imagine this being a TV series that would probably have been awesome if it had a longer storyline and of course, fleshing out the character development of the people that Caleb works with and also, the people who are working in the agency but are traitors and learning their motivations.
But as a film, all-in-all, it has an interesting plot and an interesting sci-fi and dramatic feel to it and of course, it is packed with action. Again, it has its share of problems which I mentioned above. But at the same time, I believe that the performances of Priestley and Phillips really helped this film out. So, if you enjoy a TV series like "24' with a touch of science fiction, then definitely give "Termination Point" a try. Termination Point - Time Traveler - Thriller - Time Travel - Jason Priestley'
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