Going through Don Michael Paul's IMDb credits for directing is a sobering experience for a Tremors fan. Sure, all the Tremors sequels were directed by people who hadn't directed anything at that point either (the writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock directed 2 and 4, and 3 respectively), but they were involved with the characters already. They knew very well the universe they were setting up as they had written all of it. Don Michael Paul is more of a wild card. Universal wants to see if they can get any life back into the franchise, so they got a director well-versed in straight-to-home release films, and he even has a monster film under his belt (Lake Placid: The Final Chapter). Jarhead 2: Field of Fire convinced me he might direct a decent Tremors 5.
Let's get one thing straight first, although this shares a franchise with the 2005 Sam Mendes film, they have little to nothing in common. They might have just called it Field of Fire and just gotten a few remarks on how it was ripping off Jarhead, but they elected not to. The film does look like it's set in the same universe, however. It is filmed similarly, it uses some of the same tropes as the first film, and the central theme is shared. But beyond that they're two different films about two different sets of people.
The visuals were easily the best part of the film. I'm not certain how big of a budget this production had, but I doubt very much it came even close to the first film's 72 million dollars. Considering what they had, they managed to make a film that looked, most of the time, just as good as the first one. The only major differences were in the equipment, if I had to take a guess, the picture wasn't always as striking and interesting as in the first film. But they made up for it with its cinematography and costume designs. Sure, the costume designs are pretty standard, and military films aren't exactly uncommon, but it worked.
The worst part of the film is divided between the writing and the acting. I can't quite decide which is to blame the most for some of the lines that are sprinkled throughout the film. Lines that just feel out of place, and spoken oddly and completely out of character. At some points they even throw in "random" exposition segments which feels like they didn't even try to make it more organic and natural. They just threw the exposition into the film, and hoped it would stick. Because of some of these the film just feels longer than it should. 103 minutes isn't that long for a film these days, but when I got to the 90-minute mark I had already checked the remaining time twice. I just lost interest in it. The characters didn't hold up for the duration of the film, and I started wishing they would just get to the end. Not a good sign.
Overall the film is just above "okay". I don't know if I would say it is a good film, but it certainly isn't a bad one. There are times in there when I felt like I was watching a genuine big-budget Hollywood film, in a good way, but there are also times that makes me feel like I'm watching a high school play. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone asking for something to watch, but I would neither recommend against watching it. If you're the type of person who don't need every film to be amazing, you'll probably enjoy this one. It's fun, it's interesting, and it's visually pleasing. All in all an alright ride.
Epilogue:
This film made me think Don Michael Paul might not be so bad at Tremors 5. He's not going to have anything to do with the script, that I've heard of at least, and I would call Jarhead 2 badly written before I called it badly directed. Of course this is a very small sample size to make any educated guesses, but considering this is one of the last of his films that's going to be released before Tremors 5, it's promising.
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