The Trigger Effect

I love Elizabeth Shue. Once I saw her on the cover of the video box, I had to get this film. But my wife said that if I ever rent such a "senseless, pointless, useless waste of two hours" again, I'll have to find a new wife to watch it with.

One of those movies that could have been good, if Alfred Hitchcock was still alive. Everybody was in a bad mood anyway if the opening scenes were anything to go by. The opening scenes were good, by the way, which was one reason I kept watching, but to no avail. I agree, it gets worse as it goes along, as if the writer had one good idea then didn't know where to go with it, so it didn't go anywhere. If you're about to rent this movie anyway, think about why you've never heard of it.

A power blackout sweeps across America leading to fear which slowly manifests itself into suspicion : Who will you be able to trust if the lights don't come back on ? That's the idea behind THE TRIGGER EFFECT , a film that on the surface resembles the plot of a novel by John Wyndham or John Christopher but as so very , very many people on this page have screamed from the roof tops this isn't a movie that makes the best of a great idea

The film starts with a sequence that can best be described as " Robert Altman directing the opening shot of SUPERMAN 3 " which is meant as a compliment to Robert Koepp . as the story continues we're quickly introduced to the characters of Matthew and Annie Kay who have a baby . They're visited by their friend Joe and then disaster strikes when the electricity runs out and shows no signs of returning . Get ready for danger

On second thoughts don't get ready for danger . There's something about this scenario that I can't quite pout my finger on . Maybe it's to do with the scenario which is credible but the actions of the characters aren't . Would a long lasting power cut lead to the collapse of civilization as we know it ? Possibly since everyone went on a looting rampage during the New York blackout of the late 1970s and let us not forget the mass panic caused by reports of rapes , murders and other assorted evil after Hurricane Katrina but even so I was not convinced that a power cut would lead to a post apocalypse scenario , it's not like the population has been rendered blind by a meteorite shower ( DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS ) or a worldwide famine is in progress ( THE DEATH OF GRASS ) or a nuclear war has happened ( Insert your most depressing Nuclear holocaust movie here ) . Perhaps I should point out that THE TRIGGER EFFECT probably isn't a post apocalypse type movie so if you're expecting 28 DAYS LATER you're in for a rude awakening , this is more of a slow burning drama where characters seem to be making mountains out of mole hills . By trying to be realistic it ends up being unrealistic . I'm sure most people would nonchantley sit on their behinds in this type of situation rather glad that their quarterly electricity bill would lower than usual . Hell the police are still driving around arresting people during a blackout , do you understand what I'm saying about a lack of credibility ?

I have criticised the characters but to be honest I think the problem lies with Koepp's casting more than his writing . I found Kyle Maclachlan rather wimpy as Matthew . I guess the point was that adversity can lead to wimps turning into violent anti-heroes but I was never convinced by his performance while the rest of the cast failed to make any type of impression on me at all

All in all this is a very disappointing contribution to speculative fiction . Let me just repeat that I doubt if it's intended to be an out and out grim depressing story of man fighting to survive , it's more of a drama about how reliant we are on both electricity and each other but the story never reaches its full potential which is a great shame

I was one of the people who ended up "hating" this movie and wishing it weren't so. As others have said, it's an "important" concept - how would YOU behave in this oh-too-probably situation, but it was so poorly executed. All of the characters in this movie were sooooooo unpleasant, so unlikeable. Are all middle-class Americans really like this? Somehow I doubt it. With a good director and better actors - and let's face it, has Elisabeth Shue ever done any movie where she gets to keep her clothes on - this could have been much better than the 'C' grade crap that it ultimately became.

This morning, as I perused the IMDB bottom 100, I realized that my own personal worst movie ever wasn't there...The Trigger Effect. Now, in retrospect, this was a harsh assessment to make as a teenager, but I still haven't seen anything else -- and this is after YEARS of MST3K -- that has compared to this. A Rod Serling premise delivered with Ed Wood execution -- this was an absolutely pitiful waste of celluloid and a couple of generally decent actors. The Trigger Effect is boring and lame, feeble and implausible, derivative and lousy. It doesn't even qualify in the "so good, it's bad genre"... it's just bad, which is why I rank it below about a hundred other old sci-fi or spy films that at least aspired to a lower standard. The Trigger Effect aims to be a thought-provoking thriller and isn't anything close. Has anyone else noticed that David Koepp (who wrote and directed this, in addition to penning bad scripts for The Lost World and Snake Eyes, to name just two) is the worst well-paid screenwriter in Hollywood?