The Philadelphia Experiment (2012)

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The only poor reaction that I have with this version, 2012, is the filming technique. Staging was good, scenes were well composed, image crisp and clear. The lighting was acceptable throughout the film. The one critique I have is with the method of filming.Visually, the movie appeared as if it were a video, instead of a film. It took on the ambiance of a TV 'soap opera', instead of a 'movie'. The 'feeling' of the visuals I could not dismiss...and, therefore, had trouble suspending disbelief. The 'fx' were tricky and well executed.The cast was solid, a cadre of professionals. No amateurs in the mix.Whatever camera/lens/medium was used to make this otherwise good offering should not be repeated. Using film would have made this production great!On the story line, I would have 'fleshed out' the villains a little more, with a backstory. As it is, they seem to just appear, attempting to obliterate... a malevolent force without a reason.An entertaining movie...

This remake of the 1980s cult movie was doomed from the start. It was made by Canadian filmmakers (strike one!) with Cinetel Films (strike two!) for the SyFy network (strike three, you're out!) Now, I will say that the screenplay does have a few good ideas here and there, though they are minor details instead of something bigger. The screenplay as a whole is a mess, however - there are a lot of things that are simply not explained or are completely missing. The movie felt like a quick first draft instead of something that had been gone over many times to patch up any shortcomings. Though had the screenplay been better, the movie would have suffered from a shabby look. The movie looks real cheap, even the scenes that don't depend on special effects or sets. The original movie wasn't anything earth-shaking, but it was a lot better in every department you can think of.

Has everything considering the REAL Philadelphia Experiment was actually a real top secret event that has come to be known to the public through the years. This "SYFY Channel Original" leaves off where the original 1984 film did, and is impressive for a SYFY low-budget film not to be confused with SCI-Fi Channel original channel title; which was a completely different Era in Sci-Fi films, where you couldn't discern Low-budget films from high budget.Of course, from an actor point-of-view -which is higher judging ability; which this review is of course - the 80's through the 90's had superior talent industry in general not to be confused with todays "Disney channel actors"; case & point.The old pro actors had such a dry script however, they pulled-off a decent Sci-Fi film because the true Philedelphia event as mentioned before in fact occurred even according to the Government and military records which cannot be falsified; case & point. Truths isn't conjured-up to be entertainment, that's why all these films on the Philadelphia military Experiment are not so "Hollywood" bull jacked up and is what made this movie work.Only thing the script could have improved upon like all documentary based stories is to give us some real answers on the event finally NOT fictional ones that end like a Kevin Trudea installment where your left with more questions then answers.

Decent remake of the 1984 film mainly just takes the basic plot and takes it into a new direction so those who loved the original movie and its love story can rest easy. In this version, a government agency is doing work on the original Philadelphia Experiment when something goes wrong and the ship Eldridge ends up floating around in time. The sole survivor (Nicholas Lea) ends up getting off the ship in 2012 and teams up with his granddaughter (Emilie Ullerup) to try and find out what's going on and how to stop it. I actually thought that the first hour of this film was better than anything in the original movie but sadly the final thirty-minutes start to go overboard but in the end we're still left with a fairly impressive movie and especially considering it aired on SyFy. What I enjoyed most about the first half is simply the confusion of the Bill Gardner character as he tries to figure out what went wrong in the 1943 experiment and how it has gotten him placed in 2012. I thought the early scenes between him and his granddaughter were quite entertaining and I thought the action scenes that followed with the two were well directed. The problem happens when the super secret government people start to show up with murder in their eyes and this is when the first loses its brain and fall off track. I'd say the superhuman powers that Gardner receives is also something that didn't work too well. I thought both Lea and Ullerup were extremely good in their roles and their performances made the film all the more enjoyable. Malcolm McDowell has a quite cameo but is a lot of fun and the original star Michael Pare is also on hand here so that should thrill fans of the 1984 film. I had just watched the original film days before this one and I said that the material was so strong that it really needed a bigger budget to fully capture everything it could. That didn't really happen with this movie as there's still something better that could come from the material but this here is still worth