A low rent Canadian TV movie that explores the idea of psychic premonitions in much the same way as the likes of THE DEAD ZONE et al. This one brings nothing new to the concept, instead happy to retread old ground in its telling of a man who dies in a car accident, only to be brought back to life with a special talent for foreseeing the future.

Casper Van Dien has always been a likable hero, an actor who I've enjoyed seeing since STARSHIP TROOPERS. He's certainly no great shakes as an actor but he has charisma at least, which counts for something. He's the best thing about this otherwise shoddy film, putting plenty of effort into his leading role and handling himself well in the action stakes.

Sadly, PREMONITION as a whole is spoilt by a script which copies disaster scenarios from other movies - an earthquake, a train crash which virtually reprises the one in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE - and doesn't have much in the way of originality to it. In addition, the CGI effects of trains, helicopters, and the like are very poor indeed. It's not a terrible film, just a generally lacklustre one.

Let's see. "Final Destination," a teen flick about a girl who knows her classmates will die, appeared in 2000. Was her name Cassandra? I forget. Abundant blood-letting with supernatural overtones. The audience must have enjoyed it because in 2003 we were granted admission to "Final Destination 2." Then, in 2006, "Final Destination 3." This is one of those viral ideas that seem to spread by taking over otherwise healthy cells and reproducing their own DNA. Or their own RNA. Or their own $$$.

The year 2004 gave us this one, "Premonition," preceded by a short titled "Premonition" to be followed in 2007 by a film called "Premonition." How to evaluate this? It isn't that it's budget was low. You can do a lot within strictly circumscribed financial limits. It's that every opportunity for originality or any expression of artistry is by-passed in favor of the commercially routine. It's predictable without distinction.

Right off the bat, we know something is wrong. We see a gang of hoods shoot a security guard and deface a meat-packing plant, spraying the walls with chicken blood graffiti -- "MEAT IS MURDER" and whatnot. The police put this down as ecoterrorism. (It's an interesting word, ecoterrorism, with a semantic content equal to what logicians call a null set. The category is empty.) Well, we know darn well that this rough-speaking, violent gang isn't made up of rabid vegetarians because half the Hollywood celebrities are themselves vegetarians. Man, is that a red herring. But don't get me wrong. I eat a lot of vegetables myself. Not that I like the way they taste. I hate it. But I enjoy boiling them alive or eating them while still turgid.

Anyway the gang is pursued by a pair of cops in a car chase. What would a movie be without a car chase. The cops have an accident. One of them is killed and is partner is clinically dead but then revived. Thereafter he has what he calls "visions" of future events, all catastrophes, which he goes about trying to prevent.

The gang members meanwhile find out that the hero survived and set out to kill him because "he knows too much." This makes as much sense as anything else in the film. All the surviving cop knows is what kind of car he was chasing, and he's already described it, and anyway the car was found abandoned and "sanitized" shortly after the raid. So in fact, he doesn't "know too much" at all. He knows nothing that would endanger the gang and their nefarious plans (which have nothing to do with vegetarianism, not even ovo-lacto-vegetarianism). I'll just say that the cop's visions cause him trouble at home and that nobody on the force or in the FBI believe him. The FBI would love to pin all the catastrophes -- the ones he's tried to prevent -- on the cop. Not for any particular reason. They'd just like to do it. The cop at least doesn't have to hand over his gun and his badge as so many suspect cops have to do -- at least not before I switched channels.

The gang members are interesting. They provide a good example of what I meant when I said every opportunity for originality was thrown away. They're all ugly and pure evil. They speak with Russian accents, which is getting pretty tiresome. The chief hood demonstrates what true commitment to the cause looks like. He smiles and pats his oldest and dearest friend on the back, then deliberately shoots him through the head. "See?", he explains to an awestruck observer, "this man was truly devoted -- willing to die for the cause, although he didn't know it." (I'm serious about that last line. I think it's verbatim.) Oh how EASY it would have been to make this a more adult film. Give the villain with the pock-marked face a personality. Give him some aficion. Give him a weakness for macramé or something. Have him be an avid collector of cowrie shells.

And the actors. Next time can we get some who rise above the level of afternoon dramas? I guess the cop is handsome inasmuch as he looks as if he ought to be modeling thousand-dollar sports jackets in the Times Magazine but he's not much of an actor. I thought Catherine Oxenberg would be but she doesn't quite clear the banality bar either. Nor are she and the hero alone. One actor, the guy who has visions like the hero's, speaks as if he's used to doing voice overs for aspirin commercials, though his face is a good one for the screen.

You have to have sympathy for people trying to do a complicated job on a pittance. But why strain and creak to reach for the routine when there may be jewels at your feet?

Well, the 2005 movie "Premonition" from writer Will Stewart and director Jonas Quastel is built upon a concept that is over-used in Hollywood movie history, and sadly then "Premonition" didn't really manage to cash in on the concept in a very fulfilling or entertaining manner.

The storyline told in "Premonition", as written by Will Stewart was just too mundane, too stereotypical and predictable. And that left nothing up for the audience to get thrilled about. Sure, the movie was adequately enough paced, but the lack of ups and down, or curves for that matter, along the ride made for a rather monotonous movie experience.

The characters in the movie were adequate, albeit somewhat generic, thanks to the writing. And again, the character concepts were things that had been seen before, so there was nothing grand to be experienced here. And that sort of put a dampening restriction upon the cast of actors and actresses.

The special effects in "Premonition", however, were bad. They were laughably bad, and they looked like something that was discarded from a 1990s computer game. It was just atrocious to look at, and such bad special effects just hinders a movie in its progress.

Sure, "Premonition" was watchable, but it was hardly a memorable experience, and ultimately it was a less than mediocre movie as a whole. My rating of director Jonas Quastel's 2005 movie lands on a four out of ten stars.