Apatros Review Ep-0105: Mindstorm [2001] ("Project: Human Weapon")

AR-0105: One of two films involving government-sponsored psionic experimentation to come out in 2001 with the title of "Mindstorm" [the other one was directed by Richard Pepin and I'll cover that one sometime in the future], this particular "Mindstorm" is a low budget Eastern European production that was one of the earliest films from the formerly named UFO [Unified Film Organisation] that later added "Bulgarian" to its name and is now BUFO, which has been supplying cheap genre flicks for SyFy Channel's catalogue and for the DTV [direct-to-video] market, including that sequel to the horror cult classic "The Car" and that DOOM adaptation most fans don't want to talk about [the one that has DoomGirl instead of DoomGuy... Yeah, THAT one].

This film has a joint US-Soviet project to create a super soldier [the usual type of experimentation hijinks] that uses his latent psychic and telekinetic powers to complete his mission, but when the shifty project head decides to cross the line, the sole surviving subject decides to put his powers to much better use - by escaping, tracking down his twin sister who uses her own powers to cheat at casinos and make for the border to a different country to start a new life with a more noble purpose. Guy's got a good heart, after all...

The script is weak, the casting is enough to throw your expectations a serious curve ball and the visual effects were comprised of B-grade CGI that was passable for the era but now looks so bad you'll be surprised quite a bit. The only real positive is the way the story resolves without the usual action movie trappings - an approach I actually admired from this film.

My Grade: D+ [Disappointing]

Any questions, comments or associated trivia for this review subject, please leave in the comments for this particular video.

Oh, & I also want to mention that if you're after an uncut version of this on DVD, go for the dirt cheap Australian DVD from RAAM Multimedia - it is the most complete version of the film around.