Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm covering a Canadian made-for-television movie from 1985. That movie is "The Tower".
Now, the premise for this movie almost sounds promising enough for me to warrant covering for this series. The premise involves a supercomputer that is killing the employees that work at this tower for their energy, and the people that work there have to try to find a way out of this tower that is trapping them. I don't know what the hell their energy entails to this supercomputer, but I am going to find out soon enough.
I can also tell you that this movie marks as the first international made-for-television movie I'm ever going to watch. Now, that it isn't to say that this is the first made-for-television movie I'm ever covering for this series. That honor would go to "The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas". But being that this is my first exposure to a made-for-TV film outside of the U.S., I'm curious to see how this movie's going to fare with me.
I'm not totally sure if this movie from Canada is going to be any good, but I am hoping for this thing to be decent. And the only way I'm gonna know the answer to that, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Tower".
6 minutes later
Wait, so that little spark from that switch was enough to injure that woman's hand? Her hand barely touched the switch. And that explosion? Her hand was barely around it to where it wouldn't cause enough damage to showcase an injury. I could understand if her hand was right on the impact of the explosion, but it wasn't. Her hand barely touched it! How the hell was that enough to cause an injury to her hand? I'm really curious, guys, and I'm not sure if this movie's going to attempt to explain that.
16 minutes later
OK, so one of the employees has admitted that Lola, the resident 'Big Brother' as he claims it, runs everything in this building. And for some reason, he doesn't sound the least bit concerned about what he just said. Guys, if I just heard that a supercomputer was running an entire building, I would, honestly, be a little bit freaked out by that. The very fact that this guy doesn't sound concerned by this concept sounds incredibly creepy to me. Just thought I'd mention that.
11 minutes later
Guys, I'm gonna make a comment about this later on in the review, but the special effects in this movie are incredibly cheap. And I mean they are cheap by the standards of 1985. That is just incredibly depressing.
13 minutes later
So Lola has the power to move telephones at will...OK. When the hell did she have this kind of power? I understand that Lola's a supercomputer, and she has the power to run the entire Sandawn building, but I didn't know that it included moving telephones as if she were psychic. I'm kinda curious as to how she got this ability, and I don't think that the movie's going to explain that bit.
15 minutes later
OK...you know, I was going to ask why didn't this guy just break the glass that's around the front door of the building, and get out that way. Well...at least I have my answer as to why. But...wait a minute, all he did was move the rolling chair at the front of the door before it got, I guess, zapped away by the heat signature from Lola. So how come he didn't just throw the chair at the glass? I understand it probably wouldn't have changed anything, but at least it would've made more sense then just rolling it towards the door. But then again, this movie's logic is starting to hurt my mind, and I'm not sure if this movie's going to get any better.
17 minutes later
Guys, I would love to say that this movie is slowly getting interesting again. But unfortunately, that isn't the case. Our story has gone nowhere fast, and we're now watching a music video involving this stripper/dancer, whatever she is, and she's watching it with Watson. I have no idea what purpose this scene is proving, but at this point, I have just stopped caring about what's happening in this movie. And I cannot wait for it to end.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "The Tower". I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Well, that was...certainly something. What the hell do I even talk about first? Well, when in doubt, start with the writing.
I want to make a correction from earlier. And it was the issue involving the woman at the beginning of the movie, who supposedly gotten her hand injured after a spark caused that injury. Well, that's not necessarily true. What happened was that her hand didn't get injured, it just got shocked. Which does make more sense than getting injured. So, I will admit that I was wrong about that. However, my issue with how that scene played out still stands. Because, as I mentioned before, her hand BARELY touched the switch before it sparked out. Now, it would've made more sense if her hand completely touched the switch, and then the spark from Lola caused it to explode. That would've been more believable if that's how the scene would've played out. But that's not the case, because her hand was about 2 inches away from where the switch was at. And the outcome of the spark was nowhere near to where her hand was at. So, that whole sequence just comes off as being rather lazy. And it would've also been more believable if her hand DID touch the switch as the spark was about to go off, and we would've gotten to see how badly her hand got damaged from that spark. But again, it just comes off as rather lazy, because we don't get to see a close up of any kind on her hand being injured or burnt. Now, I totally understand that you want to work with safe props, but I still think the movie could've done a better job in showing how her hand got damaged from that spark. Really though, that honestly is just a minor issue that most people are not going to notice or care about, but I still think it was worth mentioning, because it bothered the shit out of me.
Now, beyond that issue involving the woman's hand getting damaged, let's talk about the rest of the writing. Our story here is actually really promising. Because we have the supercomputer, Lola, who is gathering energy from the people that work at this building. Now the reason why Lola runs on energy is because it was built on people's heat energy that is making the entire Sandawn building self-sufficient, meaning that it doesn't need any help from fossil fuels and such. And it basically has control on anything electrical, such as lights, elevators, phones, most of the doors in this building, etc. And for whatever reason, Watson, the guy who made Lola, decides to let her run the building because he promised Lola. Well, according to Lola anyway. And because he decides to let her run the entire building after it closes, she traps some of them inside the building, because it obviously needs energy. And most of the people that's trapped in the building need to find a way out, and possibly shut Lola down. Now, that to me sounds rather interesting. And for the first, say...45 minutes or so, it is rather interesting. Because even though some of the story didn't make any sense, I was still interested enough to keep watching. But here's where we run into a problem. After that 45 minutes goes by, the entire story comes to a dead stop, and the movie is just incredibly boring to watch, because all of that interest died after the first half of the movie. The second half of the movie goes absolutely nowhere, to a point where it just didn't know what it wanted to do after that 45 minutes. To prove this theory further, we have a couple of scenes that drag on way too long. And both of those scenes involve Watson, as he's at this strip club, and the person who is dancing on stage joins him after her dance is over. And we get a ton of exposition from him about Lola. Mind you, this would've been interesting, except it's information about Lola that the viewers already know about. We don't get to learn anything new about it, other than how it features and that it needs heat energy. On top of all that, we also have another scene with him and this stripper as they enter his apartment or house, the movie's not totally clear about where they're at. And this scene serves no purpose at all, because most of it is just him and this stripper watching this music video with the stripper in it, and they're making out as the music video plays. And, as I just stated, it serves no purpose at all, other than to pad itself out to it's hour and 43 runtime. It probably would've helped if they cut these scenes out entirely, because nothing of real value happens in these scenes.
It also doesn't help that this movie has no characters that are worth caring about. Nobody here has any real development, outside of Lola. And the only reason why Lola is the exception is because of two things. She's the only character I remembered the most by name, and she's basically just a knock-off of the HAL 9000. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, even though that's what she ultimately is. But honestly, it makes her stand out as the most memorable character in the entire movie. As for the human characters, I could barely tell you most of their names, because they are just that forgetful. I'm gonna try and rundown all of the character depth that I can remember. One of them works in advertising and makes soap. One of them is the wife of Mr. Sandawn, who is the head of this company, hence the name 'Sandawn Inc'. After her husband gets his energy zapped and gets killed, she finds out that her husband has been having an affair behind her back for 20 years. Which is something that she knew about...somehow. But that's really all of the depth that she had. One of them gets his leg zapped by Lola and gets injured in the process. One of them works at the front desk of the building, who I guess is also a security guard. He also happens to have a girlfriend, who spends quite a bit of time in the movie swimming in the pool area. I guess it was just a way for the writer to have some fanservice in this movie. Which is kinda stupid, but oh well. One of them is a douchebag. And another one is our female lead, who has zero personality to her character. And then there's Watson, who is, as I mentioned earlier, the guy who lets Lola run the entire building to herself after it closes. And that's it for characters. Nobody here has any personality or depth, and they all just come off as rather bland and lifeless. And that's what really brings this movie's writing down, is the fact that our characters are just so boring and dull. To a point where you are not going to care about any of them, because the movie decided that giving these characters personality and depth would've probably made this thing more interesting to watch. And it probably would've been, had our characters been more interesting, and the second half of the movie not coming to a dead stop because it didn't know what it wanted to do afterwards with it's premise. So, honestly, writing here is just terrible. And it could've been amazing, had this thing had gotten a better script.
Now let's get to the acting. I'm just gonna come out and say it, the acting here is terrible. However, I might be willing to give some of it a pass, and I'll get to why in a moment. But the acting here ranges from being wooden, hammy, to just being lifeless. It really ranges from those 3 categories. The only one who turns in a showing that is actually decent is whoever is voicing Lola. But that's not saying very much, because the character is just a supercomputer, and you don't really have to go the extra mile into making it sound good, because it mostly speaks for itself. Now, the reason why I'm willing to give the, mostly, terrible acting a pass is because, since this is my first made-for-TV film that I'm watching from another country, I don't know if that's how the actors in this movie naturally sound, or they were just given a bad script that they decided to phone it in for this movie. I have no idea. So, I'm going to give the bad acting a pass here because I haven't really seen a lot of Canadian movies, well Canadian made-for-TV movies anyway.
Now we to get to the special effects...oh boy. Now, I totally get that this movie was made on a really low budget. So naturally, you shouldn't expect miracles when it comes to special effects. However, the special effects in this movie are incredibly cheap. And most of the effects in this movie are video effects. And most of the video effects come when Lola has to gather energy from humans. The first I can think of is when one of the security guard's bosses enter this room, and Lola asks him for his identity clearance. And what comes after is when Lola zaps him with blue energy, and the screen will turn into different colors until the guy disappears permanently. And that's not the only time that it happens. It happens quite a few times in this movie. However, as I stated, all of the effects for it are really cheap. And I mean they're really cheap, even by the standards of 1985. So, even if I were to view the movie by 1985 standards, I would still say the effects are kinda shit. And once again, I get that the movie was filmed on a low budget, but I still think that they could've done something better than just really cheap video effects. But it is what it is, so you just have to take it for what you will.
I do need to make mention of camerawork, because this entire movie was shot on video. Which, I believe, is sort of a rare thing for made-for-TV movies. At least, to me, it's sort of rare to see this. And I will say that the camerawork here is actually not too bad for a movie that was shot on video. Now mind you, it's not great, however, you also have to take into consideration that made-for-TV movies are never going to look amazing. Even if this thing was shot on video, it still looks kinda cheap. However, for the time that this thing came out, it looks rather decent. Now, I don't know if that's how Canada filmed their TV movies back in the day, or if this thing was just entirely an experimental film. Either way, the camerawork stands out the most in this movie. And for me, personally, I will consider it a positive. Lighting here is lit pretty well. Sound-mix could've been mixed better for some scenes, because some scenes in this movie have quite a bit of background noise. However, it's not enough to where you can't hear the movie properly, so I'm not gonna consider it entirely as a negative. Music here is OK. None of it is memorable, but it's certainly not terrible either. So, the score here is passable.
Ultimately, guys, am I able to recommend "The Tower"? Probably not. The only way I could recommend it is if you have a morbid curiosity like I did. If you're wondering how a made-for-TV from Canada would handle this kind of premise, then go ahead and check it out. You can probably find a copy of this movie on YouTube if you type in the movie's title and the year it came out in. For anyone who's into B movies, maybe I could recommend it there too. Other than that, no. This movie was pretty terrible. However, that being said, I wouldn't say it completely wasted my time. Because I was interested for the first 45 minutes or so. But everything after that just falls apart, and it falls apart really quickly. And unfortunately, I just don't see myself watching this thing ever again. But hey, at least I gave it a fair shot. It just didn't hold well for me. Now...I think I'm gonna go watch something else. I think I'll go watch "Escape from New York". Because it has been a little while since I've seen it, and I'm kinda in the mood to watch it again. And maybe I'll pop in "They Live" as well, just to marathon both of John Carpenter's movies.
Anyway, with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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