This film is designed for the "AM America" crowd, particularly that one guy who keeps calling in about how the government is controlling weather using Tesla Coils. Looks like he got a camera for Christmas. Now the problem is NOT the government controlling the weather by heating the ionosphere, it is that rogue element that is causing disasters. Our group is tasked in trying to find counter measures to what is happening and save California before they get shot.This is apparently the middle of a trilogy of stories which include the film "Skyhook" and "Sons of Liberty." Christine Kozlowski a former Miss Mississippi, plays scientist Maryanne Brown. She spends her time working on magnets instead of taking showers. The acting was noticeably bad. The dialouge was rather boring. There are two couples who work together at the facility, but they live dormitory style, a clear indication this production is extraterrestrial in origin. There is an evil doer with a Jamaican accent so bad they use subscripts. In order to look official the film gives us the location and time, example: Kansas City, Missouri. 16:23. No sense locking us in with a date or a year.The film has no character build up, apparently assuming everyone saw "Skyhook" a project which plays a role in this film but is lost to everyone except for that person who saw it...most likely the same AM America Tesla call-in guy. Indeed the film is designed for a narrow audience, and by narrow I mean one guy and I am not him. I'm the guy who sells plans for a frictionless perpetual motion machine;) Tesla Coils indeed.Oh yes, the camera man sucked too. Please, in the future put the camera on a rolling tripod instead of having it sway in the office scenes so I won't get motion sickness.Cheap special effects, brought back memories of those sex rays in "Flesh Gordon." Thanks, I guess.Parental Guide: No F-bombs, sex, or nudity. Implied off screen forced lesbian sex with an awkward "Gamesters of Triskelion" cut away. Sorry, I needed my obscure Trekkie reference fix after this.

Earthquakes, brush fires, land slides, mud slides, public service costs far exceeding that of the state budget leaving the the federal government to cover the costs of damages and health care for la cockroaches. As for saving the New Orleans area from a hurricane on the scale of Katrina, should not have been rebuilt after the occurrence. I certainly do not believe we have the technology to control the weather, more likely we would create a situation where weather would run amok. Nor is it possible for viruses to survive in the Ionosphere either, do not believe that viruses are capable of surviving in an electrically charged environment anymore than multicelled organisms are. Science fiction should be completely devoid of personal relationship lines, no lovey dovey nonsense.

Other reviewers have already listed the negative points of this film, so I'll list what I feel were the positives. I liked the static effects that were used to show the physical impact of frequency distortion. Even though this effect was done on a small budget, when combined with the sound and tape edits, it gave those scenes a feeling of melting reality. I also liked the main theme of the plot, about scientists working on weather control; and also the comedy elements intermixed with some very scary scenarios (though the scariness of these scenarios was never fully realised). I think this could've been a better film with a bigger budget.

The Phoenix Rises is definitely a product of the "School of Amazingly Bad Lost Rip-Offs," a.k.a. SABLRO.My first clue that this was purely a SABLRO movie was the frantic cutting back and forth with the funky beam weapon zapping the universe. Then we cut back in time to the trademark "Mysterious Introduction with Death Defying Leaps." Unfortunately we then got subject to the "mysterious danger" - coming in the form of the zombie looking woman with a machine gun as that patented Cool Hero goes through the would be massacre without a scratch or even breaking a sweat. Then we get the Sayid Jamal rip-off crazed torturer and assassin.You think I am making this up? I wish I were. This one hurt my eyes and my brain. It even hurt my ears with amazingly clanging, jangling noise they called music.If you value the health of your brain, stay away.