Crossworlds

Watched March 23, 2015

1996
Starring: Josh Charles, Rutger Hauer, Andrea Roth

Joe (Josh Charles) is an art major in college who lives in a pretty nice studio apartment above a garage. After a long day, he comes home to his friends, Steve (Jack Black) and Stu (Richard McGregor) who convince him to go to a hump day party. Joe has recently broken up with his girlfriend and his friends want to help him get over her by making a party love connection. Joe notices a mysterious woman at the party but when he gets closer she disappears. He leaves the party and goes to bed. As he is sleeping, the mystery woman Laura (Andrea Roth) approached him and tries to steal his crystal pendant from around his neck. Joe wakes up before she can take the necklace. Laura quickly tries to explain her being there but they are shot at repeatedly. They manage to make it out of the apartment and get into Joe's car to flee the gunmen.

Laura brings Joe to A.T. ( Rutger Hauer) who explains that his crystal is just one part of a key to open up alternate worlds. Some bad guys want to get the necklace because they want to control the passages to the alternate worlds. They need to find the other part of the key, which is a scepter. The staff turns out to be in a museum. Laura, Joe and A.T. enter the museum and meet the curator. They manages to break open the case and steal the scepter then use it to transport away. They end up in the ocean, still in LA, but they steal a car. A.T. brings them to the desert and starts the ritual to use the crystal and staff key. They are brought to the middle gateway, which is just a red filtered desert. They are attacked there and Joe loses the connection. 

Joe wakes up in his bed, his room looks fine, there is no evidence of the gunfire from the previous night. A knock on the door from from the police and Joe is taken to jail. Joe's mom bails him out of jail, but she doesn't answer any questions about Joe's dad who is the one that found the scepter originally.  Back at his apartment, Joe is then spooked by a short guy in a suit. It seems like the guy will help him, but then he is shot and Joe manages to escape. He goes to A.T.'s but when he opens the door it's not his studio, it's a small apartment. He figures out that he has to walk a specific way to open the correct door to A.T. Once inside the small man turns out be alive and part of the bad guys. They tricked Joe into leading them there. A.T. and Joe are kidnapped. Laura was already kidnapped and Joe joins her in an attic room. 

The main bad guy questions A.T. in his office. The bad guy has the crystal now but somehow A.T. manages to get it and escapes before the dog statues turn into real dogs. A.T., Joe and Laura all escape into the elevator but it disappears I guess the bad guy can manipulate reality to some extent. 

They all make it transitional middle world where there is a big fight. The bad guy seems like a hologram, nothing can hurt him. Eventually Joe connects to his dad's force and figures out hot to use the staff to kill the bag guy. At the end they make it to Laura's world, which looks the same as Earth.

For being called Crossworlds, they don't go to another world until the very end. They use the staff's power to jump around LA. It's mostly is just a lot of running around, the power of the staff and crystal aren't explained well. My favorite characters were the extras. There are two cool surfers dudes that are at the beach for a second before the main characters steal their car. At another point they car jack another awesome dudes car. I would have much rather seen what those guys were up to while all the other action was taking place. The bad guys does turn his henchman into digital spaghetti which is pretty neat. The couple of fun things aren't worth it, it just doesn't deliver on the premise of multiple worlds.