Finally, another proper disaster-quester. Sink Hole.
Utterly awful in that strange compelling way many of these movies are. Start with a hilarious hot hair balloon versus powerlines in what must have been the worst ever attempt to protest against fracking. Three people in a balloon with a small sign who promptly crash. Fracking, yes, town-destroying sinkholes, you know the score, but trust me they didn't have the special effects budget. There's a bad guy running the fracking operation and, bless, Eric Roberts as the corrupt sheriff who promptly forgets he's corrupt.
Cue school bus full of American teenage stereotypes. Except they're never teenagers in films like this, they're usually in their late twenties, which they were, and it makes it all the more peculiar. When one of the 'teenagers' asks another why she's not in her uniform the correct answer should have been 'because I'm 28 and it would be uncomfortably weird.' The most annoying 'kids' at least die quickly from acute stupid. It's still not quick enough.
So, kids down a hole, oh noes. How do we save them? Not with anything fancy like ropes and helicopters, no no no. Remember that hot air balloon? Fortunately, our lead character is still dragging it around hitched to the back of her truck (why? – this is precisely why, you never know when you'll need an emergency hot air balloon).
So, our heroine pilots her hot hair balloon into the sinkhole. I'll confess that I don't know much about the practical mechanics of hot air balloon operation but I don't think they work like that. Anyway, there are only two kids left, stupidity is a killer, so she loads them into her balloon but wait, hold on, didn't she crash this very balloon into the powerlines? Yes she did. Did she fix it? No. It's leaking and – oh thrice no – it's run out of gas. It's too heavy to get out of the hole. Who's going to get left behind? (They could just get rid of the clearly visible sandbags.)
It turns out this little drama is resolved by simply having the balloon emerge unexplained with all still aboard. I felt a bit cheated by this, it's basically like everyone sat around and couldn't figure out a way out of this particular dilemma so opted not to bother. If there was an explanation, it ended up on the cutting room floor.
So yes, it's a terrible thing. The annoying teenagers were a standout, 'jocks' really do say 'dweeb' in movies like this and they at least had the sense to die through satisfying outbreaks of stupid. The plot was anaemic and nonsensical but featured a hot air balloon and the sort of terrible CGI that I love. The lead actress could, at least, actually act and acting is never a given in movies like this. We all have bills to pay.
