The Steam Experiment (2009)

People are voting emotionally.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This movie is also known as "The Chaos Experiment" - and I thought that alternative title really sums this up quite well. It's really quite a chaotic movie which has much greater potential than it ever came close to fulfilling. Val Kilmer plays a man named Jimmy who as the movie opens walks into a newspaper office and tells the editor that unless his story about global warming is printed, he's going to kill 6 people he has locked up inside a steam room by turning up the heat, so to speak, to demonstrate the chaos that will erupt between them and show what he believes is going to eventually happen in the world due to global warming. The movie then goes back and forth from Jimmy to the steam room, as he's questioned by a cop played by Armand Assante who tries to find out where the 6 are.The premise is somewhat interesting. One of the major problems with the movie, though, is that - aside from the plight they find themselves in - there's no particular reason given to care for any of the six in the steam room. The characters are never really fleshed out, aside from a very brief introduction they give to each other in the movie's early stages, before they realize their situation. So we get a few seconds of each giving us their likes and dislikes and telling us where they're from. But for this movie to really work, we need to know more about them; we need to care about them - and frankly, we don't. There's even suspicion throughout (probably deliberate) about whether any of it is actually true, or whether it's just a delusion inside Jimmy's head.The idea was interesting. It just didn't work very well.

This was a truly wretched excuse for a film, which can be watched only with the assistance of a video game or something to keep your mind off of it. You've heard the premise that Bozo has six people locked in a steam room as hostages. However, it becomes clear that there's no actual connection. You'll never find out IF it happened, let alone why.The reactions of the hostages are idiotic even by survival scenario standards. After seeming years of morons emo-ing themselves and one another, one guy gets the notion to rip out the steam pipe. We chuckle as we await the rapid parboiling of the crew in steam from the ruptured pipe, but alas, it doesn't happen. But as soon as he thinks to use the heavy pipe to try to break out, the other hostages kill him for it. Eventually they get the notion to use the pipe to crack the window, great, but only so that they can drop it out of the room. It only gets worse from there. A five year old child would do better at an escape. It would make a good theater of the absurd except it's just too slow and stupid and there's no very good metaphorical point to be made, except that Americans are too darn dumb to worry about global warming, because they won't live that long except if they're lucky enough to be sold into slavery to wealthy PRC businessmen.The one and only redeeming feature of the film is that some of the actors and bare-breasted actresses are fairly pretty; though the director tried his best to make them look drab, greasy, with truly terrible personalities and generally undesirable. Those of us who delighted in Willow and at least admired in Fake Identity won't be dreaming about the Kilmer from this film.

I have seen posters and trailers for this flick. Even fangoria had an article about this dreg. The attention was out there because three actors from the eighties were in it, Val Kilmer, Armand Assante and Eric Roberts. Val is playing the main role. He's the villain, but what a performance he gives. Really, the fall of an icon, the fall of batman (you get it?). The only thing he has to do is stair into the camera or sitting at a table at a police office. One let down. So far I haven't seen a flick from Philippe Martinez. And I never will do it again. This is just tedious. It's more about Val then about the experiment. Oh yes, they promise that the experiment will take two days so lungs will explode and eyes will crystallize. But none of that happen. And even the performances in the sauna are a big let down. Eric Roberts was never one of my favorites and here again he shows me why. All we get in the sauna is a bit of arguments and a slashing throat, some fights and the best thing, but that's for later. Even all of that is so wooden, the blood flows a bit but never is frightening or whatever. There is a scene with a nail gun machine. You see the machine, You see the face of the scary girl, then it's bang bang bang and we see the result, not convincing at all. If you got three nails in your head well blood will flow. Here we see the nails, never in close up and a drip of blood. The reason that my collection has this flick is the fact that I found it on Blu Ray for 5 euro's. And now for the best part, Eve Mauro. If you want to see bouncy balls, well you will have two minutes of slo-mo and close ups. And if you can't get enough of her juggs go watch Wicked Lake.

Also known as THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT, this scramble for survival flick just doesn't really hit the spot. Val Kilmer no less; when is he going to make another good movie? Kilmer plays a scientist that may have been around too many chemicals or just over compensating for his book learning. He goes to a local paper wanting the next morning's headline and his expose on global warning featured. To prove he knows what he's talking about, the deranged doc admits to holding six people hostage in a renovated hotel steam room and the heat will gradually keep rising. He wants to prove that humanity will snap under such pressures of global warning. Detective Mancini(Armand Assante)tries to beat the clock and free the hostages. Six sweaty half naked people don't have much patience when the fear and paranoia begins to boil over. Also in the cast: Eric Roberts, Megan Brown, Eve Mauro, Quinn Duffy, Patrick Muldoon and Cordelia Reynolds.