Premonition (2005) starring Casper Van Dien, Catherine Oxenberg, Kyle Jordon Drewitz, Doug Abrahams directed by Jonas Quastel Movie Review

Premonition (2005)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Casper Van Dien & Catherine Oxenberg in Premonition (2005)

No Second Sight Needed

Former soldier turned detective, Jack Barnes (Casper Van Dien) finds himself in the midst of a chase when he and his partner stumble across terrorists in masks of presidents stealing radioactive material for their dastardly plans. But whilst his partner dies Jack survives and finds himself having these visions of major disasters which are ignored by many as just symptoms of the stress he has been under. But when his visions start coming true and he predicts a major terrorist strike he not only finds himself on the run from the terrorists who want him dead but also the FBI who find his power to predict a bit to freaky whilst of course he tries to do the right thing and stop the terrorists plans.

Many years ago when I started The Movie Scene I contemplated various names and one of those was "9 out of 10 Cliches" because having a love of movies since I was a young boy I was well aware that the majority of movies were made up of cliches. That brings me to "Premonition", the 2005 TV movie starring Casper Van Dien, which supports everything I say when it comes to movies being made up of cliches. From Jack Barnes having nightmares of his days as a soldier to going on the run with both the bad guys and good guys after him it is absolutely nothing new. It even steals the criminals in President masks from "Point Break". And it is the same with the vision aspect as the concept of second sight has been used long before this and long before David Cronenberg gave us "The Dead Zone" back in the 80s.

But maybe it comes from several decades of watching movies that the lack of originality in a movie rarely bothers me these days. Yes a fresh idea would be nice, a different combination of cliches would be a good start but reworking old cliches can still be entertaining when done well. Unfortunately in "Premonition" they are not worked well and not only does it work through the cliches in the most generic of ways it also throws some disaster movie style special effects at us which are terrible. It makes it hard work to really become engaged with as it struggles to deliver anything close to atmosphere or real excitement.

What it also struggles to deliver is decent characters because they are also just cliches, typical characters with little depth and ironically little in the terms of character. It means that "Premonition" trades a lot on its star; Casper Van Dien, Catherine Oxenberg and Lorena Gale being recognizable.

What this all boils down to is that "Premonition" is just another movie, a forgettable cliche filled thriller about a man with visions on the run because of what he sees. It offers up nothing new and more often than not fails to even be average.


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