Leofwine_draca This 2012 version of THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT is a failed reworking of the minor sci-fi classic that was the original. Gone is the military-focused, ship-bound storyline to be replaced by a generic 'government conspiracy' style tale, with lots of driving around and chatting as a couple of protagonists evade the generic bad guys.The special effects are very limited and consist merely of a couple of 'electricity' effects which they really shouldn't have bothered with, as they're not very good. The hero duties are fulfilled by Nicholas Lea, who certain cult fans may remember playing Krychek in THE X-FILES, while the likes of Michael Pare and Malcolm McDowell prop up the cast. However, like a lot of low budget Canadian sci-fi movies in recent years, it's really not worth bothering with.

Wizard-8 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.

haimericus Usually I watch SyFy original movies just for laughs, but this actually had some interesting plot points and decent acting in some of the major roles. The basic concept is sound: a top-secret project to create an invisibility cloak, building on the supposed 1940s Philadelphia Experiment with the destroyer USS Eldridge, actually creates a link between the two events, with increasingly catastrophic results. Instead of the star-crossed lovers of the 1980s movie, we have the 1940s Eldridge survivor (played rather well by Nicholas Lea) teaming up with his own granddaughter. Kind of sweet, and makes for an interesting scene when she meets him--she recognizes him from old family photographs, and here he is, sitting in her (his?) house. And not every time travel story has the guts to end with, "Okay, we fixed the timeline, so actually none of this ever happened and no one's the wiser."The biggest plot issue: The government baddies who keep trying to kill people who could help them solve the problem. For crying out loud, once a destroyer has landed on top of the Sears Tower, it's a little late for a cover-up. It really seemed as though the evil-government-operatives angle was more an excuse to have chase scenes and explosions than anything else. There were also some interesting plot threads that were left hanging--Who was on the telephone, warning our heroes about the baddies? What was the "Ivory Gate" thing about? If Salinger thought the whole concept was a bad idea, why did he instigate a shadow project to parallel the government's research? Maybe there was more on these originally, but it got cut from the final edit because someone thought we needed more gunfire and explosions.Not a great movie, but so much better than most of their original movies!

wes-connors An experiment goes haywire in Philadelphia, causing a ship from World War II to appear on a runway west of the city. A man from the past, navy officer Nicholas Lea (as Bill Gardner) gets off the boat and tries to figure out what has happened. Arriving to investigate, handsome sheriff's deputy John Reardon (as Carl Reed) gets on the ship and it disappears. We remain in the present, with Mr. Lea. He meets Mr. Reardon's beautifully-shaped blonde girlfriend Emilie Ullerup (as Molly Gardner); they have a startling connection... Paul Ziller and his crew's lower-budget re-make of "The Philadelphia Experiment" (1984) is pretty good for the first 30 minutes, but the story begins to drag and the script begins to sag. Although they add stylish good looks, scientists Ryan Robbins and Gina Holden pad the story like refuges from a modeling agency. Later in the running time, Michael Pare (as Hagan) provides a lift. Malcolm McDowell has a small role. It would have been cool if Mr. Pare played the same character as he played in the 1984 movie, but promoted to some sort of Time Cop.**** The Philadelphia Experiment (7/28/12) Paul Ziller ~ Nicholas Lea, Emilie Ullerup, Michael Pare, Ryan Robbins