Forces of Nature (1999)
1st January 2000
During Ben's stag night, his grandfather is taken ill and his plans are drastically altered. He is forced to make alternative travel arrangements to return to Savannah for the wedding. Things get off to a bad start when the plane he is flying in suffers a bird strike on take-off and has to abort. Scared of flying before the incident he cannot bare to catch another plane and decides to travel home by land. Unfortunately, he inadvertently knocked out a passenger sat next to him and subsequently rescues her off the plane. Now eternally grateful she decides to travel with him...
Ben is so different to his travelling partner Sarah that opposites soon attract and Ben is torn between his nervous fiancée Bridget and the free spirited Susan. There are plenty laughs and disasters along the way as transport problems and a hurricane does its best to stop Ben getting home. Sarah makes up various stories to assist in their trip, but these soon backfire on the pair.
The picture is bright and colourful with no signs of artifacting, although at times it can be a little washed out. Some of the slow motion camera work, especially when raining, is dazzling and the night time scenes really do show the wonders of the format at work.
With this being mainly a dialogue intensive film there isn't much of a call for the surround effects. However, whenever mother nature shows her face the surround channels come alive with the sound of rain, wind and thunder. The dialogue is also impressively clear in the centre with no signs or bleeding to the other channels.
The menus are animated and brilliantly effective with some nice music to go with. There's also plenty of extras to keep you happy including the standard trailer and an interesting behind the scenes featurette. Again, another film includes deleted scenes and, again, the producers decide not to offer a seamless branching version of the film including these cut scenes.
The ending is fairly predictable, but you still end up feeling happy and warm-hearted and it is the sort of film than can produce many repeat viewings. Many reviewers underrated this film, along with Sandra Bullock's performance, but I particularly enjoyed it and would have no hesitation in recommending it.
- Production Notes
- Cast and Filmmaker Biographies
- Theatrical Trailer
- Behind the Scenes Featurette
- Deleted Scenes
Peep Show: Series 6
Review14/06/2023
Earth Final Conflict: Season 1
Review30/07/2020
Aliens
News08/03/2024