Driving & Parking - CROSSWORLDS (1997)

“Long ago, the Warlords seized power over my world. A resistance army banded together to fight the oppressors. Though it was a battle we could not win, we survived and continued to resist the occupation.

The Warlords then turned their attention to other worlds, other dimensions to conquer.

A few Mystics from both sides possessed the skill to pass through the boundaries that separate dimensions. But, for an invading army to Crossover, a door between the realities must be opened.

And for that door, there is a key…”

Cast your eyes on that title crawl– just look at that 1980s fantasy font in serifed Roman capitals, right-justified, with a drop shadow, inching its way over a shot of what is definitely probably not a state park right outside of L.A. Look at that capital M in Mystics, with the diagonal central part of the M overshooting the vertical legs! Look at those skinny S’s and the enormous commas! My god, we look like we’re in for a full-on Swords And Sandals party. If this isn’t Mad Max in Ancient Rome (also known as Beastmaster) I’m going to be so disappointed. This font alone has me bouncing in my chair. Let’s see some sorcery! 

We open on a night shot of some castle ruins with the title, still in glorious serifed all-caps, “COASTAL ALBANIA - 20 YEARS AGO”. Odd, it doesn’t look much like 2005, but Albania is a strange place. An extremely poorly lit figure waves a flashlight around in a fuzzy gray movie set that might be a cave, a tomb or a basement. Just as he Indiana-Jones-style ‘retrieves’ a long stick from a movie skeleton (maybe? I can’t see anything), three more shadowy figures appear in business suits and ask him where “the rest of it” is. He responds with sass, saying “You’ll never find it”. A flash of lightning, sci-fi or magic blasts the set with blue light, and then we cut to opening credits--which now fade in and out over glamour shots of props and relics floating on a black background. 

The opening score for this film, as props are waved and swung by set decorators at the last minute in post-production, consists of JUMANJI-esque tribal drums interspersed with the wheeeennn metallic scrape sound effect that you hear in every drama or spooky TV show to tell you that something dramatic is happening. In fact, it’s this EXACT ONE:

It’s bad enough that this classic horror sting sound effect is highly recognizable (like my ultimate favorite sound effect, “Pottery Drop Break PE112401” ) but to use it over and over as the opening song immediately pottery-broke me and I was cackling by the time they hit the button the fifth or sixth time. 

This dramatic metallic sting is officially called Oil Can Bow or Rusty Spoke. It’s used in many reality TV shows with a molecule of drama, including Shark Tank, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Forensic Files, and CSI. It’s also surprisingly hard to find online, but I did it. For you.

After getting me all hot and ready like a Little Caesar’s pizza with the 1980s Roman capitals and Oil Can Bow, I’m looking forward to a good old-fashioned magical relic romp through some time travel or something. Instead, we are dropped straight into an early 2000s boner comedy, where our intrepid hero Joseph (Josh Charles) is standing around awkwardly at a party like a dollar store Ross Geller. Joe is a whiny, nerdy, hand-flailing New York fella who just wants to know what da HELL's goin on around here.

In a scene that goes on way too long, an incredibly young Jack Black goads his bro (“She’s TOTALLY looking at you!”) into chatting up a 90s babe on the dance floor. This falls flat, and discount Ross goes upstairs to mope alone in bed after a single rejection. 

Suddenly there is a flash, and a Hot Blond Babe (a different one) appears in his room while he sleeps! She approaches with a knife! She climbs on his bed to straddle him in a thrilling, pseudo-sexual moment that has absolutely zero tension! He awakens- gasp! Well hello-oooo, Nurse! 

But no: she's just after his mystical necklace. There's apparently no time to explain. After being interrupted by some stock footage of a crow, Terminator Babe (Andrea Roth) pushes Joe off the bed to save his life as a series of surreal moments push just a sprinkle of creativity into this movie. Joe opens the door of his bedroom to reveal the California desert and a Bedouin man galloping towards him full-tilt, BEETLEJUICE style.

Then a New York mobster in a suit flies in through the bedroom window and opens fire. Somewhere in Chicago, the Wachowski sisters frantically start taking napkin notes (“Agent?”). Terminator Babe Andrea Roth pulls Joe to his feet with the legally distinct line “Come with me or you’re dead. Move!” And, 17 minutes into the film, it finally sort of starts.

Andrea Roth drags him to a magical secret workshop base hidden in a bigger-on-the-inside hotel room, where they meet A.T. (Rutger Hauer), who cryptically hints that Joe should just stick with them if he wants to live. Just when we think this is going to lead into a spaceship or a portal, we cut to a SLOW VERTICAL TV WIPE (!) and then some driving and parking.

A scene of exposition unfolds in the museum (established mostly via an exterior still shot of a building) where it is hinted that the carved rainstick from the opening credits is gonna need Joe's ugly necklace poked into a hole in the side to unleash its full power. So far so good. Then another attack happens– suits of medieval armor in the museum come to life and start smashing up the display cases! The museum curator reveals his evil purpose as an Agent, Rutger Hauer activates the rainstick and blows the museum wall out with it, creating a portal. At this point I was having a delightful time! Campy, stupid, well-lit and predictable as a filler episode of Star Trek TNG.

Unfortunately, this is pretty much where the imagination, and the budget, ran out. The rest of the movie is filmed in the cheapest locations they could secure while Joe tries to save the world from the suit dudes. The desert a few more times (sometimes with a deep orange filter), some interiors, the desert again, and some interiors.

All that talk about Mystics, Warlords and other dimensions never ever comes to pass: the ‘other dimensions’ promised is that orange filter, by the way.  Hauer gives a very reasonable performance as the grumpy “I’m too old for this shit” guide through the movie, and Andrea Roth does as many high-kicks as she and her stunt double can get away with,  but there’s just none of what we hoped for as a viewer: spaceships, crazy CGI, transforming monsters, alien landscapes, dreamworlds, stop-motion beasts. 

If you wandered into the room mid-movie and didn’t know any better, you would think this movie came out in the mid-80s. Despite being produced by Trimark, it's not even listed on their Wikipedia page. The opening credits are old fashioned already for 1997– by the 2000s, most American films had changed to end credits only. The gritty film feels made-for-TV, as does the cast. Josh Charles isn’t the worst actor by a long shot, but he’s got a gawky loudmouth energy that would play much better in a sitcom than a feature film that asks for some control. I never feel that he feels that there’s any threat or impact in this movie. He’s just romping around having a good time in his sweater. The slow, vertical TV wipe mentioned earlier is NOT the only instance either, and it took me by surprise every time. 

Ultimately CROSSWORLDS is a victim of its own budget and feels small and flat where it should feel big and expansive.  Director Krishna Rao has nine other directorial credits under his belt. Want to guess what they are?

If you said "I bet every goddamn one is a TV show", you're right!

Budget, like necessity, can be the mother of invention. A good artist is freed by limitations. A great one feels no restriction at all from limitations. The first act of this movie actually has some creative surprises that are charming and endearing, relying on old fashioned movie trickery to please the viewer – like Joe opening his bedroom door to see a desert on the other side. And the climactic battle (hope you like orange gel) does have some adorable 1990s spherical CGI blood effect, reminiscent of sci-fi TV shows of its day like Buffy or Star Trek:

But without enough soul to glue it all together, CROSSROADS is, at best, something you should put on in the background while you're cooking dinner. There are far better low-budget sci-fi flicks to watch if you want to see creativity in action: I recommend Albert Pyun's DOLLMAN (1992).

Personal rating: 3.5, but might be worth a re-visit with some tequila on board.

CROSSROADS (1997) and DOLLMAN (1992) are both available on Tubi.

This article was written by a real human without any use of AI.