THE SHRUNKEN CITY is another straight-to-video children's fantasy flick from producer Charles Band, shot in Romania on the cheap but with lots of high-driving energy to just about see it through. Once again miniaturisation is the subject matter of the movie - Band seemed to be a man obsessed with it - with a couple of kids getting their hands on the titular shrunken city and doing battle with an alien race called the Ood who are determined to destroy it. Much of this is complete nonsense, of course, but the alien costumes are fun in a STAR TREK way and it's nice to see where starlet Agnes Bruckner started out, a decade before THE WOODS and the like. Director Ted Nicolaou is the man best known for helming the SUBSPECIES series of movies.
6 Reviews
Basically, for kids.
Seth18 May 1999
Hmmm....let's see, this is by director Ted Nicolaou ("Subspecies"), so that gives it a few points. And if you are a fan of the CBS daytime soap-opera "The Bold & The Beautiful", it also stars Agnes Bruckner (who played Bridget Forrester), so that jacks it up a couple more points. Bottom line, if you got kids who love PG-rated sci-fi flicks, or if you're an adult who likes the two above reasons, I'd recommend a look. But otherwise, like my summary said, it's basically a kid's flick.
Absolutely awful.
CabbageCustard31 July 2019
Cheap special effects, a dumb script, terrible acting, anonymous actors - what more can I say? The kids liked this, but only the younger ones. The basic concept of this is good: a pair of kids find a miniaturized alien city and dislodge its power supply meaning that the city will soon grow to its correct size, with cataclysmic results. Can the kids find the lost power source in time? Complicating matters, there are a group of sinister aliens chasing them. These nasty aliens want the tiny city for their own nefarious purposes. Fortunately for the kids, these aliens seem to be unable to run and so the kids have that advantage. Also, all the adults in this seem to be fairly dumb, so that's another plus for the kids. Everyone seems to be shouting at one another which, I guess, is in lieu of being able to act. Like I said, there is an interesting idea at the heart of this and also the potential for a good movie. Unfortunately, this misses the mark by a mile. OK for undemanding kids. Parental guidance not required - save yourself the pain.
Good Kids Entry, Paced Well, Fun Cheapie from Moonbeam
radioactivesound14 March 2022
A good kids entry that adults can enjoy to a point also.
Clean overall fantasy / sci-fi entry from Moonbeam.
Is it cheaper and a bit contrived at times? Absolutely, but it's paced pretty darn well for this type of film, really no boring or slow points.
The neat feature of the bad guys constantly changing their looks to stay after the kids without being discovered as aliens / outsiders is a pretty nice plot point and helps keep the story moving and fun.
It's maybe a bit contrived or cleans up nicely at the end, but it's not overly annoying I didn't think.
The two kids as the main leads should keep younger viewers interested and engaged and with the adult aliens chasing them should interest older audiences well enough.
The masks that make the aliens up as the aliens are actually recycled from Oblivion, a Full Moon series that spans two movies and was generally pretty well received.
It was a bit interesting also, seeing the Romanian backdrops and vehicles, factory they go into used in the movie, at least I thought it was fun to see.
I got this with two other Moonbeam movies in a pack for about $10 with shipping. Goobers and Night at the Magic Museum. This movie was definitely a couple steps above those two kids-oriented movies.
Clean overall fantasy / sci-fi entry from Moonbeam.
Is it cheaper and a bit contrived at times? Absolutely, but it's paced pretty darn well for this type of film, really no boring or slow points.
The neat feature of the bad guys constantly changing their looks to stay after the kids without being discovered as aliens / outsiders is a pretty nice plot point and helps keep the story moving and fun.
It's maybe a bit contrived or cleans up nicely at the end, but it's not overly annoying I didn't think.
The two kids as the main leads should keep younger viewers interested and engaged and with the adult aliens chasing them should interest older audiences well enough.
The masks that make the aliens up as the aliens are actually recycled from Oblivion, a Full Moon series that spans two movies and was generally pretty well received.
It was a bit interesting also, seeing the Romanian backdrops and vehicles, factory they go into used in the movie, at least I thought it was fun to see.
I got this with two other Moonbeam movies in a pack for about $10 with shipping. Goobers and Night at the Magic Museum. This movie was definitely a couple steps above those two kids-oriented movies.
Kids LOVED this movie
theherberts2421 July 2012
Not a 10 because of it's million dollar Hollywood blockbuster actors, effects, etc. But because my kids really loved this movie. My 7-10 year old's especially were on the edge of their seats by the end of the movie. Yes, as a grown up we can see that this is cheap, cheesy, and made over a decade ago but generally kids don't care about that stuff. And my kids certainly didn't mind. For me the BEST thing about this movie was that it was CLEAN!!! If we have to watch cheap unrated movies filmed in eastern Europe to find clean and wholesome for our children, then so be it. I give this movie a 10 because we all had a great movie night and I didn't come away thinking, "now how am I going to explain this to my kids?"
cool movie for kids
melchior3 October 2000
i have seen this movie today and i liked it, but i think it's more for kids. the girl Agnes Bruckner can make cool faces but personally i think she overuses this feature of herself sometimes. this might of course be a fault of the director. anyway nice to see, i enjoyed it very much. thanks for this movie.
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