Crossworlds

College student Joe Talbolt (Josh Charles) is sleeping when Laura (Andrea Roth) materializes in his room and tries to take a crystal he wears around his neck. He awakens to see her--as well as several gunmen who also appear in his room. They escape and Laura takes him to A.T. (Rutger Hauer). They are members of a resistance movement from a planet conquered thousands of years ago by the Warlords, who want to conquer other worlds and dimensions as well. While the dimensional barriers can be crossed by certain individuals, to move armies they need an ancient scepter and the crystal that powers it--the crystal Joe wears, given him by his long-dead father. They steal the scepter from the museum where it is guarded by Ferris (Stuart Wilson), one of the Warlords. After learning that his father died making sure that the scepter and crystal would not fall into the hands of the Warlords, Joe helps A.T. and Laura prevent Ferris from getting them. In a climactic battle, Joe uses the power of the scepter to destroy Ferris. Visiting Laura's world, Joe accepts the thanks of the Queen (Beverly Johnson) and decides to follow in his father's footsteps and become a transdimensional warrior, winning Laura in the process.

Given CROSSWORLDS' brief running time, it's possible that parts of the plot were cut somewhere along the line. But it's equally possible that the filmmakers, like too many in the sci-fi and horror genres, simply felt that it doesn't matter whether or not a movie makes any sense as long as it looks cool. While CROSSWORLDS features plenty of digital effects, though, none of them are anything more than functional. And writer-director Krishna Rao does nothing imaginative with the "reality-bending" premise, using it simply as a means to move his characters arbitrarily from one place to another. The only thing CROSSWORLDS has going for it is the usually drily amusing performance of Rutger Hauer, who has been wasted in far too many movies of this caliber. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment