"Fire From Below" gives new meaning to the term 'potboiler.' This predictable 84-minute disaster feature about a mining company that exposes a vein of pure base Lithium qualifies as a below-average made-for-television feature. In this case, it was produced for the SyFy Channel. Co-directors Andrew Stevens and Jim Wynorski have concocted nothing but pure claptrap. Apparently the Lithium loves to breathe and seek out water so it takes the form of a flaming finger of swirling fire that chases people over water or in the mine cavern and burns them up. We're talking flaming cheese. No, nobody gets burned on screen so that they turn into screaming French fries. One scene shows the fire trailing after a recreational speedboat on Lost Lake hauling a woman on skis. Indeed, the fire torches her and then the boat and its occupants. As it turns out, our hero and heroine, seismologist Jake Denning (Kevin Sorbo of TV's "Hercules") and his fiancée Dr. Karen Watkins (Maeghan Albach of "Rockabilly Baby"), are vacationing in rural Lost Lake when they discover a corpse floating in a lake. Karen leans on a wooden railing that collapses. She falls into the water and a dead man rises to the surface. Meantime, the Lithium has killed everybody in the mine and is slowly killing everybody in Lost Lake, most prominently Sheriff Griffith (James Hampton of "The Longest Yard") and garage owner Bubba (Burton Gilliam of TV's "Evening Shade"). Naturally, the military shows up and a crisis meeting is organized at the Pentagon where our hero shows how combustible a Lithium battery is when torched in the water. The Army evacuates citizens in the surrounding area while our heroes plunge into the fire to confront the out-of-control science project. Suspense is virtually lacking and the fires are all generated by computer graphics. Nothing in "Fire From Below" is remotely believable. Again, this is a paycheck movie for the actors and actresses involved and nobody gives what could be called a genuine performance. They utter throwaway lines from a shallow script based on William Langlois' story and written by the two directors. I hate to start watching a movie and stop it at the half-way point, but I should have made an exception with "Fire From Below." Nobody gets naked. Nobody is turned into a flaming pizza. Nothing!
Review of Fire from Below
