Lightning strikes - 2009

A tv-movie and a b-movie, let's start with that. It's not a great movie, that's obvious, but it's not all that bad. It's actually very average. No burst of enthusiasm but no disgust either. It's not funny but it's not too boring. The story has that little detail that keeps you awake. The characters are all stereotype: the mayor who wants his 'pumpkin festival' to be a success and won't allow the sheriff to do his job and evacuate the city before it's too late is such a clichè in disaster movies. There's everything you expect. It starts with a nice mother&son moment then the lightnings start, it seem they might get away from it but these are not common lightnings, these ones are stubborn and keep trying to hit them, until one cuts their car in half, but both appear safe (it was a precise half, between the two seats). They try to escape but there's a creature in the lightning and it won't give up. It strikes them both and they both see it, but it kills only the kid, the mother is left alive. The sheriff (Kevin Sorbo) comes to investigate and finds her. What happened is a mystery to him, but not to the newcomer in town: Donovan (David Schofield) comes to town chasing the monster in the lightning because some time before it had killed his son and now he wants vengeance. More newcomers chasing the lightning: a professor and his assistants Angel and Jerry, chasing the lightning to find a scientific explanation. The sheriff has a son but not a wife, she died a year before and he has to raise a teenage boy alone. I'm very glad they didn't put any romance in it, as it's often the case although totally out of place. Nancy (Annabel Wright) is a single mom who has just lost her son, it would have been totally inappropriate but this doesn't seem to stop so many moviemakers.
There's a lot of talking in the middle but not too much: trying to put some sense into the mayor's head, trying to keep his son Billy out of trouble, explaining to the sheriff what that thing is... which is not much because basically Donovan saw what we saw so he doesn't have big explanations to give.
He only says that there's a monster there and he wants to be hit by the lightning to go to its place and kill it. Simple!
We don't know what it was at all. Is the monster IN the lightning or maybe he IS the lightning? Why does it come here to kill? Why sometimes it kills instantly and sometimes it doesn't? Why is it that sometimes it hits nothing at all (a road, a roof..) it it can aim?
But never mind, this is light entertainment, nothing to be taken seriously, only a way to spend 90 minutes, possibly with friends like any b-movie should be watched. The comments are the fun-part
:-p So, we are finally towards the end. Billy and Jerry want to help Donovan build his big thing that will draw the lightning on him. The sheriff tries to evacuate the place anyway but it's too late, so he goes with Nancy to find Billy. The lightning strikes, again and again, killing and destroying, but mostly killing, until Donovan succeeds and we see him fighting the monster. We don't see him winning (at least I didn't) but when it all stops maybe we can assume that he won? What happened to him? Nobody knows.
The funniest part (company will make it fun) is betting on 'when will the mayor die?' :-p
The best scene is when Donovan explains to Nancy his plan, his story. She could-not/would-not explain what she saw, but he helps her telling what he saw, and she's totally for him and his plan to kill the monster. The actress played it right, I liked that look of comprehension and vengeance on her face.
The worst scene was when the lightning strikes Billy. First time Nancy protects him and it's fine; second time it strikes him directly but he doesn't die like all the others. Donovan tells the sheriff to help him if he wants to save Billy so he does and Donovan goes to fight the monster. In that time before Donovan's arrival, why didn't Billy die? Everyone else did, if taken separately.
Nancy survived because, like Donovan, she had been taken with her son and the lightning only takes one. Billy should have died but he survives to give the emotional scene 'please don't die' to the sheriff, but I didn't like it at all.
The very ending was nice and quiet. No more lightning, all the survivors gather in the open, and the sheriff properly introduces himself to Nancy, which I liked :-) Nice scene :-)
There was no time before but now it's such a normal thing to do it's pleasant and gives a sensation of peace that's quite nice.
p.s. many die, including the professor, Jerry, Doc, the mayor..