The Chaos Experiment Should Have Stayed in the Lab
The straight-to-DVD thriller The Chaos Experiment dares to go where few films tread: it mocks someone who prays at the altar of global warming alarmism.
So give Chaos props for such a bold stand, since the misbegotten movie doesn’t deserve much praise in nearly any other way that counts.
The film, now out on DVD, stars Val Kilmer as a professor who thinks all the gloom and doom predictions about global warming are wrong. Dead wrong.
The Earth will be warming faster and hotter than anyone expects. In three years we‘ll experience 130-degree days — in December.
“That‘s a fact,” the professor gloats.
No one believes him, so he decides to take drastic action. He lures six strangers into a steam room under the guise it‘s a dating service stunt, cranks up the heat, and then throws away the key. It’s all about showing people how societal norms break down when the thermostat goes through the roof.
Then he tells his story to the local newspaper to drum up press for his “experiment.“ He wants publicity and doesn’t care if he goes to jail in the process.
The Earth must … be … saved.
So far, so original, if a bit overheated, but that’s hardly a sin for some guilty pleasures. And Kilmer sells his fantastical warnings as well as expected — what a shame he’s been reduced to DVD fare of late.
Things deep south as soon as the story breaks away to those six trapped strangers. Suddenly, we’re in Cinemax After Dark territory, watching a gender-balanced group of attractive people wearing next to nothing and chatting away like some third-rate reality show.
The sauna dwellers are fighting well before they realize the predicament they’re in. It’s hardly a social experiment if the rats in the cage start squawking before the trap is sprung.
The only recognizable face amidst the steamy, sweaty bodies is Eric Roberts, who manages to maintain his dignity and look respectable in only a towel, but the script soon lets him down.
Veteran actor Armand Assante, playing a detective called in to investigate the professor’s claims, is a curious casting choice here, but he’s tonally so very different than Kilmer that the pairing clicks. What they really need is a script with bite. Instead, they share a few tense moments, a scene or two where the electricity between them arcs into existence before quickly winking out.
I pretty much stopped watching anything Kilmer did after the disappointing “The Saint” and the absolutely appalling “Batman Forever”. (The latter played like an episode of the 1960s Adam West TV version as “re-imagined” by somebody who directs music videos for a living.) His two good films, that I am aware of, are “Tombstone” and “The Ghost and the Darkness”- both of which are set in the 19th Century on frontiers (America and Africa).
Kilmer seems to do a good job of playing roles requiring little dialogue and a fairly sedate brand of action. Anything requiring any sort of grasp of abstract concepts seems to be beyond him. (Batman and Simon Templar being cases in point.) This film would seem to be yet another indication that he is limited in this respect.
And as Clint Eastwood famously remarked, “A man’s got to know his limitations”.
clear ether
eon
Val Kilmer needs to get out of his bubble then, perhaps, he may start making good movies again; otherwise, he will remain on DVD-limbo. I can see The Chaos Experiment quickly added to the Sci-Fi channels list of horrible films they show every weekend.
Val Kilmer is in good stead with Tom Cruise at this point.
Eon,
Kilmer’s back catalog has much more worth mining than the two you mention, which I have not seen — he can be superbly hilarious in comedies:
Top Secret – sort of the precursor to Airplane. I still have to laugh every time I think of the Nazi boots scene and a few others…like “It’s like some kind of bad movie.”
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Underappreciated smart, funny movie with a great pairing of Kilmer with Robert Downey Jr.
And many would also throw in Real Genius (I think it’s called), which I enjoyed, but not as much as the other two.
Talented guy. It’s a shame to see him reduced to this.
I will second “Kiss kiss bang bang”. He was also great in Tombstone. Maybe he is not liberal enough to get more roles. . .