tags: royai, inspired by the swan princess (1994), enemies to lovers - more or less, romance, forced proximity, angst, happy ending, song: this is my idea (swan princess)
snippet:
Roy didn’t get it.
But his aunt insisted.
It wasn’t fair!
“It will be of great benefit to us to have good relations with our neighbours. Both now and in the future.”
Roy huffed. The urge to tug back against her guiding hand grew again. He almost did it too.
“This isn’t my idea of fun,” he muttered to himself.
“What?” His aunt’s sharp question made him jolt in surprise, but he scowled and said nothing further, prompting her to sigh.
I mean… I knew this was going to be a steaming pile of shit, because I watch bad movies all the time and I know when one is going to be particularly bad. And it is bad, but I didn't hate it? It was so ridiculous that I was just kind of rolling with it by the end.
I don't even know what this is. It's kind of a very localised disaster movie? But then also it's about bad guys trying to rob the US treasury which inexplicably has a warehouse in small town USA? (I believe they're in Alabama but honestly it could be any of those southern states)
Anyway, sit back and let me tell you the tale of the Hurricane Heist, which I’m putting under a cut because it’s lengthy.
Plot:
All right, so we start out with Pa, Bucky Joe and Billy Ray (please note for the purposes of this review I am using made up names because who cares what their actual names are) driving to escape a hurricane because for some reason they've left way too late.
Anyway they crash the car and run into a nearby farmhouse to take cover from the storm, but Pa is like, "Sons, I needs to get out there to fix our vehicle in this raging storm," and the kids are like, "Okay Pa whatever you say."
So of course he goes out into the hurricane and promptly gets FLATTENED by a flying water tank, it was great.
Then the kids are in the house screaming for their Pa, but the hurricane is in a real fucking-things-up kinda mood, so the house starts tearing apart, and then, no shit, little Billy Ray sees the image of a skull in the clouds about to swallow them up. Now that's how you craft a movie, people.
Fast forward to the present day and it turns out young Billy Ray has now got himself a fine storm chasin' vehicle named the Dominator (hmmm, I believe Reed Timmer of Storm Chasers fame would like a word with the writers of this movie – also, I know it's a niche thing but like, both this movie and Into the Storm have just blatantly stolen stuff from the short-lived but excellent TV show Storm Chasers, and I notice this but nobody else would). Billy Ray is a meteorologist and a hurricane is coming to fuck shit up.
Then we meet Maggie Grace, who I'm now going to refer to as Bobbi Rae because I'm working with a theme here, and she works for the ATF who are responsible for shredding old money at this big warehouse in this tiny small town in bumfuck nowhere Alabama.
Now, Bobbi Rae was something of a hotshot for the ATF but then she did something stupid and got demoted to money-shredder, which she's pissed about. I do not remember, nor do I care, about her checkered past.
So Bobbi Rae has this iPad which controls the safe, and she, for some reason, seems to be the only person who is allowed to unlock the safe. They also have a backlog of old money to be shredded because their shredder has not been working, and coincidentally, on the day of the hurricane, the repair people turn up to finally fix the shredder.
Now, the repair people are a man and a woman who are dressed just inexplicably for this line of work, which was my first clue that they were not above board (also WHY WOULD THEY SEND PEOPLE TO FIX THE SHREDDER IF A HURRICANE IS BEARING DOWN ON THIS TOWN but what do I know, the US Treasury Department is bigger than one damn hurricane that's for sure).
Anyway, across town Billy Ray rolls up to Bucky Joe's shithole of a business where he has settled in to ride out the hurricane. Bucky Joe is played by Australia's Ryan Kwanten, and I have a theory that Ryan Kwanten looks at Chris Hemsworth's career with some envy, as he has gotten stuck in this trap of playing sorta-hot-greasy-ripped Southern men in recent years, and this movie does nothing to change that. They were even on the same TV show in Australia, like, can you imagine moving over the US, getting a role on True Blood and thinking you're doing really well, and then watching Chris Hemsworth ascend into the fucking stratosphere?
This has nothing to do with anything, but it was just something I was thinking about watching this movie.
So Billy Ray and Bucky Joe don't get on much these days because Billy Ray is off fancying himself some kind of hotshot meteorologist, and Bucky Joe was a football player in high school but is now working as a repairman (a ripped repairman though, so good for him).
Over at the Treasury, Bobbi Rae has left and headed into town for some reason, and while she's out the bad guys take the opportunity to take the warehouse by force. Then it turns out one of the ATF guys is working with them, in what I guess was meant to be a plot twist. And also, the shredder-fixers I mentioned earlier? Yeah, they're totally in on it. I'm sorry but you don't roll up to the Treasury Department looking like a couple of cheap-ass hipsters during a hurricane if you're not evil, okay.
I can't remember exactly what happens because I watched a lot of movies this weekend so it's a bit of a blur, but I think bad guys roll up on Billy Ray and Bucky Joe and demand that Bucky Joe goes to fix the generator at the treasury, and Bobbi Rae sees this or is there for that, so she and Billy Ray end up working together out of his armoured car. Then they go to the cops and what's that? It turns out the fucking police are in on it, because they want some of that sweet, sweet about-to-be-shredded cash money.
Then there's a car chase mid-hurricane, and Bobbi Rae and Billy Ray spend the entirety of the chase shouting at each other (this movie is SO LOUD), until finally in order to stop the guys chasing and shooting at them, Billy Ray deploys the spikes from the bottom of this vehicle to anchor it to the road, the bad guys crash into them and roll their car.
See, again, this is blatant stealing from the excellent and important TV documentary show Storm Chasers, of which I have seen every episode. Not that they ever deployed their spikes to deliberately fuck someone up, of course.
THEN something happens that NEVER HAPPENS IN MOVIES – they pull up in a parking structure to escape the weather, and both Billy Ray and Bobbi Rae take the opportunity to urinate. WHAT. THEY ACTUALLY WROTE THAT INTO THE MOVIE.
Anyway, a lot of stuff is happening – the bad guys are freaking out because Bobbi Rae and Billy Ray keep thwarting them, and they need her to go back to the Treasury to unlock the safe, which they are also trying to hack at the same time. Bucky Joe is at the Treasury "fixing the generator", but then he tries to help the guards escape their cell and gets thrown in with them. Bobbi Rae and Billy Ray hatch a scheme to draw the bad guys out to the mall and also rescue Bucky Joe, who they bring with them as leverage. Then while at the mall they blow out the glass roof and the bad guys get sucked into the hurricane, but not our heroes, because they tethered themselves to the building (also there's a truly hilarious part at the start where Billy Ray starts whipping hubcaps at the bad guys in the storm and just straight up murdering people).
Then they hatch another scheme to blow up the Treasury? I don't recall exactly what they were going to blow up, but they needed to go to the garden centre and get fertiliser to make a bomb. And then the bad guys figure out they're there – because everyone is literally just driving around this town in a hurricane – and roll up on them, but just before shit can go to hell, a storm surge floods the shop and surrounding areas of the town, and yet somehow they all survive this, but Bobbi Rae gets captured by the baddies and taken back to the treasury.
At this point I was like, okay guys, so we're not blowing shit up now?
Because Billy Ray is in love with Bobbi Rae (or wanted to bang her), he and Bucky Joe hatch another scheme (so many schemes hatched in this movie!) to go rescue her, but by the time they get to the treasury the bad guys have packed trucks full of money and are on the run.
Now, this is where it gets truly ridiculous, in case you were worried that this point it wasn't ridiculous enough.
The eye of the hurricane has passed over them, and it is quite literally a delineated thing – as they're driving, they're in the sun, and behind them you can see the storm clouds racing to catch up. I think the plan is that these guys are just going to stay in the eye of the storm the whole way? Because the hurricane is literally going to follow the highway for them?
Anyway, things then go from truly ridiculous to utterly preposterous very, very quickly.
So Billy Ray and Bucky Joe are racing to catch up to the trucks, which have a head start on them. I had no idea what the plan was at this point. I don't know what they were intending to do. I guess they were intending to rescue Bobbi Rae but honestly, there's a lot of carnage and death in such a short space of time, plus they are literally outracing a hurricane.
What ends up happening is that they jump from their car to the back of the last truck in the line, and somehow they don't DIE? And then they take over that truck, and move on to the next one, and then… one of the trucks has its trailer sucked into the hurricane, which then detaches, and flips back to smash into the cab of the truck and blow it up?
Honestly it was pure insanity and I was in fits of laughter.
The movie ends with one of the other trucks getting sucked into the hurricane as well – literally sucked inside, as if the hurricane was a tornado and not actually a hurricane – but our heroes just continue driving in the eye of the storm.
I mean… I mean. I don't even KNOW WHAT TO SAY.
It's shit, but also, it's really funny? I mean, I can't say I enjoyed it enough to award it a "10/10 banger" but I'd give it like a "7/10 INSANE".
RT @CJ_isnowblue: I don’t give a shit if there is lightening, hail, a tornado, a hurricane, a fire... I don’t give a shit if I have to wear a mask, face shield, gloves,a full hazmat suit.. I WILL go to the polls on November 3rd to vote for Joe Biden & every D on the ballot! Are you with me? 2PLAN22 http://twitter.com/2PLAN22/status/1251651624411463680
I don’t give a shit if there is lightening, hail, a tornado, a hurricane, a fire...
I don’t give a shit if I have to wear a mask, face shield, gloves,a full hazmat suit..
I WILL go to the polls on November 3rd to vote for Joe Biden & every D on the ballot!
Are you with me?
Group of Scientists Bravely Fly a Plane Inside a Hurricane and You'll Never Believe What It Looks Like
Group of Scientists Bravely Fly a Plane Inside a Hurricane and You’ll Never Believe What It Looks Like
In the Philippines, although we get to experience typhoon for about twenty times in a year there will always be fear and panic whenever a storm is about to enter the country’s area of responsibility.
Heavy rains, flash flood, landslide, and thunders caused by typhoon will always be terrifying especially if the weather forecast tells that your place is the center or the eye of the storm.
