OK, normally I seriously complain about people who leave cynical reviews and can always find something redeeming in many of the most awful films, but this movie almost made a cynic too! That was... until I realized how much fun it was to watch! This movie was extremely entertaining, but it most certainly wasn't due to the quality of film. Simply put: this film is so poorly thrown together and so monumentally cheesy it, by accident, becomes laugh-out-loud camp sci-fi comedy. Like those old 50's era cult camp sci-fi films! My teen son and I had a blast watching this thing. We didn't go more than 15 to 30 seconds between laughs at terribly obviously set pieces, corny Halloween-ish costuming, gawd awful dialog, moronically unrealistic character behaviors, and hilariously nonsensical plot development.
I highly recommend you watch this film with a group of friends for a great home-made MSTK 3000 style movie heckling night! When you do, be sure to look for these kinds of things: 1. An "elite military" squad lands on a remote planet for a rescue mission, but due to complete incompetence they do things that would make a naive Army Private cringe, like: the commander NEVER gives out orders, when shooting starts 3 people shout orders, in the most heated point of a firefight one of the "elites" stands up from cover for NO REASON and takes well deserved arrow to the shoulder, the commender carries his gun by the gun sight (maybe hes the squad sniper?), they use REALLY old-fashioned walkie-talkies with a very long telescoping metal antenna (I guess radio shack FRS 2.4Ghz family radios are obsolete in the future). I could keep going but time and space limits say I should move to the next item.
2. Terrible costumes. Lance Henrickson's character (the best damn actor in the whole movie) wears a mask with a camera lens over one eye and the costume designer failed to paint over the "SAE F 2.9 RAZOR" stuff on it. The crack military squad goes into a known hostile situation but only after getting attacked do they return wearing extra crappy body armor. The commander looks so queenly while wearing his special helmet, and is that a pregnancy test or an MP3 player stuck on the side of it? 3. If the planet's human survivors have all these firearms, then why the heck does that girl carry a knife with a bone handle and shoot wooden arrows with a bow?!?!?!? 4. One of the FUNNIEST scenes: When one of the squad members is killed by the screamers, the rest of his squad actually BURN his body openly in the desert and stand right next to it like they are cold and trying to warm their hands. I was so waiting for one of them to ask if anyone had some marshmallows for s'mores! They try to explain this saying that the guy wanted to be cremated by his elders, but wouldn't that be the duty of his family back on earth? I mean, do our marines over in Iraq or Afghanistan simply hold human-body bonfires out in the desert after a bad firefight? Jeeeeez! 5. Ludicrously funny sets. Within the first few minutes note the first shot of the interior of the ship looks like a dressed up beauty parlor! I'm positive those were dressed up barber shop chairs! Watch the first time the squad re-enters their ship. A ladder appears out of nowhere in the middle of the room and passes through the hatch, wha? Didn't they hire a continuity director on this? If the screamers move through the dirt ground, why are the survivors hiding in a CAVE with a WOODEN DOOR and a DIRT FLOOR? I'll stop there, next! 6. Joke props with magic sounds: Watch the commander use a cheap digital camera to power up a screamer with wires and alligator clips and use voice activation to tell it to "power target". then watch him pull out a long obsolete memory card with "SD" clearly printed on it, plug it into a USB reader, then into a Chinese MP3 player and then tell it "Download all the files, off the hard drive, everything." SCREAMERS HAVE HARDDRIVES?!?!? APPLE AIRBOOKS HAVE SOLID STATE DRIVES, huh? Are those soldiers carrying AIRSOFT guns in most scenes? On a planet with no trees of any kind, where do they get all the wood for the wooden crates, doors, and that silly girl's bow and arrows? Notice the arrow girl when she falls down is showing her "bone" in the most ludicrous of locations, I almost cracked in half laughing at that one.
Okay okay, I think there must have been some 10,000 goofs in this thing, so I'll stop now. Just rent this, or something, drink some beers, call your friends, and get ready for some accidentally brilliant camp comedy!
I highly recommend you watch this film with a group of friends for a great home-made MSTK 3000 style movie heckling night! When you do, be sure to look for these kinds of things: 1. An "elite military" squad lands on a remote planet for a rescue mission, but due to complete incompetence they do things that would make a naive Army Private cringe, like: the commander NEVER gives out orders, when shooting starts 3 people shout orders, in the most heated point of a firefight one of the "elites" stands up from cover for NO REASON and takes well deserved arrow to the shoulder, the commender carries his gun by the gun sight (maybe hes the squad sniper?), they use REALLY old-fashioned walkie-talkies with a very long telescoping metal antenna (I guess radio shack FRS 2.4Ghz family radios are obsolete in the future). I could keep going but time and space limits say I should move to the next item.
2. Terrible costumes. Lance Henrickson's character (the best damn actor in the whole movie) wears a mask with a camera lens over one eye and the costume designer failed to paint over the "SAE F 2.9 RAZOR" stuff on it. The crack military squad goes into a known hostile situation but only after getting attacked do they return wearing extra crappy body armor. The commander looks so queenly while wearing his special helmet, and is that a pregnancy test or an MP3 player stuck on the side of it? 3. If the planet's human survivors have all these firearms, then why the heck does that girl carry a knife with a bone handle and shoot wooden arrows with a bow?!?!?!? 4. One of the FUNNIEST scenes: When one of the squad members is killed by the screamers, the rest of his squad actually BURN his body openly in the desert and stand right next to it like they are cold and trying to warm their hands. I was so waiting for one of them to ask if anyone had some marshmallows for s'mores! They try to explain this saying that the guy wanted to be cremated by his elders, but wouldn't that be the duty of his family back on earth? I mean, do our marines over in Iraq or Afghanistan simply hold human-body bonfires out in the desert after a bad firefight? Jeeeeez! 5. Ludicrously funny sets. Within the first few minutes note the first shot of the interior of the ship looks like a dressed up beauty parlor! I'm positive those were dressed up barber shop chairs! Watch the first time the squad re-enters their ship. A ladder appears out of nowhere in the middle of the room and passes through the hatch, wha? Didn't they hire a continuity director on this? If the screamers move through the dirt ground, why are the survivors hiding in a CAVE with a WOODEN DOOR and a DIRT FLOOR? I'll stop there, next! 6. Joke props with magic sounds: Watch the commander use a cheap digital camera to power up a screamer with wires and alligator clips and use voice activation to tell it to "power target". then watch him pull out a long obsolete memory card with "SD" clearly printed on it, plug it into a USB reader, then into a Chinese MP3 player and then tell it "Download all the files, off the hard drive, everything." SCREAMERS HAVE HARDDRIVES?!?!? APPLE AIRBOOKS HAVE SOLID STATE DRIVES, huh? Are those soldiers carrying AIRSOFT guns in most scenes? On a planet with no trees of any kind, where do they get all the wood for the wooden crates, doors, and that silly girl's bow and arrows? Notice the arrow girl when she falls down is showing her "bone" in the most ludicrous of locations, I almost cracked in half laughing at that one.
Okay okay, I think there must have been some 10,000 goofs in this thing, so I'll stop now. Just rent this, or something, drink some beers, call your friends, and get ready for some accidentally brilliant camp comedy!