Review of Fire Serpent

My expectations of this movie were agonizingly low, based on 1) the fact that it's a Sci-Fi Channel Original, and 2) according to the trailers, Captain Kirk had something to do with it. (Though I'm not sure exactly what. All the trailer said was, "From the mind of William Shatner." Does that mean they brainwashed him into writing a screenplay, or did he dial up Sci-Fi Channel corporate offices one day and say, "Hi, William Shatner calling. I think you should do a movie about a sun flare that shoots its way to earth and stalks people like a giant snake? Now get to work. Good-bye.") In reality, the movie wasn't as horrible as I suspected. It definitely sucks, but it sucks in such a way that you're kind of laughing yourself through it and waiting for the next scene to ridicule. The opening scene flashes back to 1966, when the Fire Serpent first came down to Minnesota as a spark that ambushed and killed a young female firefighter who was putting out a brush fire with her boyfriend Dutch. Instead of spending the next 40 years terrorizing the world, the Fire Serpent apparently hibernates until this past Saturday night, when some firefighter named Jake (played by Nicholas Brendon) sees the Fire Serpent do the exact same thing to his rookie friend. Brendon runs into Dutch, who tries to explain that this fire wasn't really a fire, it was a living, snake-like monster. Brendan thinks Dutch is on drugs and tells him to go pound sand. Right here, I wanted to slap Brendon upside the head. The last time I saw Brendon in a movie, he spent two hours getting chased all over a secluded island by a killer pinata in "Demon Island," so he should know that if giant pinatas can come to life, so can fire. In the meantime, Sci-Fi Original veteran actor Robert Beltran spends most of his time in a power struggle with a young actress who has a nice figure (can't remember her name but she played Evelyn in last season's "24") about who has jurisdiction over forest fires in Minnesota. The movie leaves you hanging with unanswered questions. For example, why did the Fire Serpent kill a young lady in 1966, take a 40-year hiatus and then re-emerge in the present day to continue it's killing spree? If the Fire Serpent is such a bad-a**, why is there only a cast of a half-dozen people in this whole movie (You'd think the Fire Serpent's reign of terror would've attracted more attention)? Why bother writing the nosy, investigative reporter and her photog into the film when they get killed 20 minutes into the movie? The special effects don't draw you in either, they're horrible and the creature looks like it was drawn by orange crayon. But the movie is just entertaining enough, even if in a laughable way, to get you to keep watching until the end. I give it a 4 out of 10, only because it's better than that "Pumpkinhead" drivel Sci-Fi Channel wheeled out two weeks ago and I gave that movie a 3.