Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Leofwine_draca Well, I wanted to enjoy this single-location thriller, about six people who are trapped in a sauna with ever-increasing heat eventually driving them out of their minds. Unfortunately, the sauna scenes are so poorly shot - in some kind of arty way which looks like vaseline has been smeared over the lens - that it renders the film almost unwatchable.It's a pity, because a decent B-movie cast has been wasted on this one. Val Kilmer is the guy behind everything, and Armand Assante the detective trying to get to the bottom of things. They have lots of talky moments in the interview room which are pretty dull and just included to pad out the running time a little.The stuff in the sauna is better, although as it transpires quite predictable; you can easily guess how the characters will fall apart. The youthful cast members are pretty poor, and the females seem to be included for how they look in and out of bikinis rather than any acting talent. But Eric Roberts holds things together, as always, and Patrick Muldoon (STARSHIP TROOPERS) is a nice surprise too. It's just a pity the execution is so bad on this one.

brchthethird This is an ineptly made "film" with a nonsensical plot and thinly sketched characters. Val Kilmer plays a deranged scientist who seems to think that the effects of global warming are imminent, and so locks six people in a steam room to prove his point while he also uses them as a bargaining chip to get his "story" published. If that all sounds wacko, it's because it is. Nothing about this makes sense. Val Kilmer is basically portraying a stereotypical conspiracy nut job, but he doesn't even do it that well. And that filmmakers decided to drag global warming into this is even more stupid because it denigrates a serious scientific effort by putting it in the same category with people who believe(d) the world would end in 2012 (and schizophrenic madmen). Aside from him, none of the characters are really given any back story, or any reason to care about them. Armand Assante (as an off-duty cop) does a serviceable job with the material given him and kind of acts as the surrogate for the audience, in a way. He calls out Val Kilmer's character for what he is, and says what everybody in the audience must be thinking about him. Still, it looked like he was sleepwalking through the entire thing. Eric Roberts was the only other actor in this piece of trash that I recognized, but he's given even less to do as one of the six people trapped in a steam room (or are they?). Here is where the writing really lacked. There was no character development to give the audience any reason to care about them, aside from a couple sentences from each stating who they were, where they were from and what they liked/disliked. That's it. After that, it was just them hanging around and slowly going crazy after they find out they can't get out. I just have to say that the film-making here was rather shoddy. The editing was really weird, especially in the steam room scenes. You would have one character speaking, but then it would fade to another while that character was still talking, and replay bits of dialogue. Also, the steam room scenes occur in between scenes of Val Kilmer and Armand Assante and are shown in such a way that it appears that Val Kilmer is either telepathic/omnipotent or he's describing something that already happened, which would directly contradict what he said in the beginning of the movie. Considering that his character is crazy, I guess I could just let it slide but honestly, it's just poor writing, through and through. Val Kilmer's character is basically a Jigsaw wannabe, but only in his head. Even with the mental state of the lead character in question, the appearance of two people (coincidentally, the last two survivors from the steam room) still makes no sense in the context of the story and raises more questions than it answers. Overall, this is a frustratingly bad movie with poor filmic qualities, horrible acting and a story that's too thin and makes no sense. I look forward to never seeing this again.

mattbaxter72 Most bad movies at least have something going for them, something that makes you want to sit through them, even though you know they're rubbish. It's a rare film that is so thoroughly messed up in every department that it's literally unwatchable. That, plus the frankly bizarre premise, gives this thing some novelty value, if nothing else.The premise is probably the best thing about it. Think Saw crossed with An Inconvenient Truth, with gratuitous nudity and gratuitous sweaty Eric Roberts. With a plot like that, it could have been a camp classic, but unfortunately everyone took it very seriously, for some reason, almost as though they really thought that this movie would carry a serious message about global warming.Val Kilmer, above all, is VERY, VERY SERIOUS. He mumbles and stumbles his way through an embarrassing performance, but he's still the best member of a dire cast of non-actors and mugging over-actors. The quality of the camera-work suggests that someone just learned how to use the special features on Windows Movie Maker, and the dialogue seems to have been written by someone who has never heard English spoken before.It's a challenge to sit through this deeply silly, but deeply self-serious movie. Really, you've got much better things to do with your time.

Michael O'Keefe 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.