Survivor (I) (2014) User Reviews

A good movie to watch if you fall ill.

[lois-lane33 · 5/10 · 20 October 2014]

I thought this movie was OK-if you're stuck home sick. It had a good SF premise but it fell apart somehow. They opened the film with a scene of someone falling through empty space-exactly the way the film Predators opens. It shares other similarities with Predators in that some of the "aliens" look like they wandered in from a set of the film Predators. No matter-it was made for light Saturday afternoon viewing anyway, so what the hey. The female lead was in good shape- looking like she had just trained for a Triathlon, which is something you don't see very often in contemporary SF. Good ending-I was expecting a poor one since it became kind of a 'monster mash' somewhere towards the end. All in all it doesn't work as big screen material for one reason or another but it works as a film to watch if you are under the weather. Thats all I got.

I nearly didn't survive this

[bowmanblue · 3/10 · 16 March 2015]

Oh, dear... where to begin. 'Cheap' is the word I'd use to describe 'Survivor.' Even the title is hardly inspired. I ran the word 'survivor' through the Internet Movie Database's search to try and find this film, but there are so many other films/TV shows called it, that I had to end up looking it up via an actor's name. In fact, the searching for it online was actually more enjoyable than the film.

Okay, that maybe a little harsh, but it was just so cheap it was hardly worth bothering with. It's about (and I can barely be bothered to regurgitate it all again!) the last few survivors from a doomed Earth, now destined to fly through space while they search for a new home planet. The spaceships all look computer-generated, but that doesn't last long. The ship soon crashes and they have to survive on an inhospitable planet. Or at least one of them does. A lone girl has to basically fight through hordes of native humans (and later monsters) to try and rescue the few remaining crewmates who survived the crash.

It basically plays out like 'After Earth' but with less of a budget. Then again, After Earth hardly set the Box Office on fire, so that is a strange film to base another one on! Later on the cast moves to underground and, what with the inclusion of the monsters, it ends up a bit like 'The Descent.' Even sci-fi fans won't really enjoy this film. It's just too cheap and too unoriginal to really offer anything new. Yeah, if you're really that bored on a Saturday afternoon and you come across this film on TV (no way you would ever feel justified in paying for it!) you may just sit through it. Only if you're bored though. Really bored.

So Much Running

[cfleming-03678 · 5/10 · 28 April 2018]

Danielle C. Ryan runs so much in Survivor that I started training for a 5k race because of it. She runs on hills, rocks, and more rocky terrain. She even would run underwater if she could. She scales cliffs, darts through caves, and unsympathetically tells her crew mate "you're going to die" (maybe because she's not a good runner?). Most of the movie is like a cross-fit advert.

It has a weak story and every enemy overacts (i.e., flips, spins through air, flails, etc.) when killed but if you watch Survivor with low expectations it's not terrible.

Run pretty girl run! (Thats all)

[emphedokles · 2/10 · 28 July 2014]

This "movie" is about a running blond pretty girl. Originally she came from a spaceship, but that does not matter very much. The story is paper thin or to say it precisely, there is no story. It is one of that stories which is that flat, that it bends time and space and you know not only from the beginning how this movie will end, you will just know the complete plot. Thats because you have seen this story in 10 other equal cheap "Oh no! My spaceship crashed!" scifi movies. I am pretty sure the screenplay was not longer then. "Ships having an accident, then pretty girl runs around, kills some evil dudes, finds a horse yadayadayada the end." Its one of that movies you can watch when you already planned to fall asleep at your couch or when you are drunk like a skunk and want to watch some easy nothing. If you watching it sober, you will for sure fast forward half of the movie.

Chuchran wasted

[tkell31 · 4/10 · 4 August 2017]

I was pretty much captivated by the lead actress and would have turned it off after 15 minutes if not for her. That face! My guess is she played some kind of sport growing up because she's athletic and easily the best part about this movie since she lends some credibility to the action sequences and has amazingly expressive eyes. As an aside Hollywood seems to have forgotten how important facial expressions are in conveying what is going on, preferring to dazzle with effects and hammer you over the head with inane dialogue.

Anywho, Chuchran does a great job, but it's just too rough with too little plot for anyone to overcome.

Not the finest moment is Sci-Fi cinema...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 17 August 2014]

Having read the synopsis for this movie, I must admit that I didn't really expect too much from it, and now having seen it, I can honestly say that the movie lived up to the low expectations.

The story is about the last of mankind searching the vast reaches of space for an inhabitable planet. A spaceship tracking a signal has to go into a wormhole, when disaster strikes. The ship is torn apart and the surviving crew is stranded on the alien planet, having to fight for their very lives to stay alive, against hostile humans and monstrous humanoids.

The storyline was essentially adequate, albeit a bit too simple. And there was a bit too much focus on Danielle Chuchran's athletic skills for running and rock-climbing.

The creatures in the movie were looking more like a crossbreed between the orcs and trolls of "Lord of the Rings", which just made the movie seem like a half-hearted attempt at a Sci-Fi movie. And while we are speaking of "Lord of the Rings", the scenes with Danielle Chuchran running around the barren rocky landscape with a panning camera flying around was just too much like the scene where Legolas was running around. At least do something original...

The reason for me sitting down to watch the movie was Danielle Chuchran and Kevin Sorbo. And sure, they made the movie watchable and endurable, but they were struggling hard with an almost non-existing script and storyline.

"Survivor" is a below average Sci-Fi movie, and if you are in for an evening of Sci-Fi, then I would suggest that you find something else, because this movie is not really worth it.

A mere 4 out of 10 stars to "Survivor".

Entertaining in an 80's Sci Fi sort of way

[inesco · 6/10 · 13 April 2015]

First of all, I didn't expect much from this going into it, which helps with this sort of thing. I was pleasantly surprised.

It's all a matter of expectation. I used to browse the sci-fi sections of the video stores back in the 90s trying to find anything decent and this move was better than a LOT of what I watched back then.

It's better than all of these similar-themed movies I watched back in the day: - Survivor (1987) - Nightfall (1988) - Def-Con 4 (1985) - Cherry 2000 (1987) - Cyborg (1989) - maybe not too much better than this one, but a little.

I would put in on about the same level of cheesy sci-fi action fare as:

• Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) - Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

(well maybe not as good as the last one)

Seriously though, if you don't expect much of this, you'll probably be entertained.

• pretty good action

• pretty good low-budget special effects

• plot moves along pretty well without too many lags

• good make up effects

• lots of gorgeous southern Utah scenery

• strong lead performances by Chuchran and Sorbo

Overall, I would describe it as a pretty decent Sci-Fi time waster.

And to reference other commenter's' mentions of Morlocks, this movie is WAY better than the Guy Pierce/Jeremy Irons, The Time Machine (2002)!

If you are interested in another Chuchran/Lyde collaboration, The Curse of the Dragon Slayer (2013) is also a pretty decent 80s style fantasy/sword & sorcery flick.

Really bad

[Jackbv123 · 2/10 · 31 July 2017]

There is almost no plot after a scout ship crashes on unknown planet, unless you count Kate traveling 60 kilometers over semi-mountainous terrain to rescue her injured captain and then a score more to find the crash site so she can send a distress beacon.

There is very little dialogue for at least half the movie, which is good because Danielle Chuchran delivers it poorly in quick but flat lines.

One thing is for certain. Kate, who has lived all her two-score years of life on a space ship is in physical shape that boggles the mind. She runs and climbs and runs and climbs. In crashing, Kate falls out of the scout ship and plummets apparently miles but opens a tiny chute about 50 feet above the water and survives. Then she gets knocked out and captured, but her captor is gone when she wakes up so she escapes. He or another of the natives (all wearing masks) traps her again, but she escapes again by simply climbing away. Chased by a half-dozen or more natives who are almost on top of her, somehow she is magically away from them and "safe". Three monsters corner her with three arrows left so she climbs a sheer cliff, then shoots at least twice that many arrows to kill them all.

More running, more impossible fighting. The monsters have 4 inch claws but never use them and outweigh Kate 2-1 but she defeats several of them in hand to hand several times.

Finally some plot and dialogue with about 20 minutes left in this 1-1/2 hour film. And the plot is not that great.

In this part of the movie, natives remove their clumsy masks which appeared to be for breathing, but apparently they don't need them.

Chuchran has a pretty enough face, if you enjoy looking at a dirty girl with unkempt hair. But she is not enough to carry this movie with its ridiculous fights and lame plot. Wait til you see the ending.

A modern Sword and Planet film

[aschmoe · 8/10 · 21 January 2020]

Sword and Planet is a really rare subgenre, and I was so excited to find one that it probably colors my review, but this movie definitely exceeded my expectation.

It's pretty much the classic Earth-man lands on a hostile primitive planet and socks it to the local aliens with their superior kung-fu. But of course, this time the Earth-man is actually the Earth-girl Kate Mitra (Danielle Chuchran). I'm not sure what happens to her sleeves, but she doesn't need them to kick lots of alien and scale every mountain like a champ. I'm not sure how much of those stunts Chuchran does on her own, but whoever did it, dayum, good work. The character Kate is a bit of a stone, but plot-wise, it makes sense, she's falling back on her training and tuning herself out in this truly traumatic experience. And frankly, this is what I like to see in my Sword and Planet heroes, and I'm glad that they didn't decide that because she's a girl she needs to have a softer side. Kate Mitra proudly stands shoulder to shoulder with Sword and Planet heroes like John Carter and Flash Gordon.

I felt like the combat was very realistic too. There aren't a lot of useless spins or flips. There are a few leaping attacks but they almost always end badly, which is good, being dramatic in RL fighting is rarely a good idea. People do not expire from small wounds, you do see people go for take downs and finishers. There are moments when Kate gets concussed or winded and she never does that weird second-wind thing where the movie hero is losing and then inexplicably gets their strength back and wins because the movie plot needs them too. This makes Kate Mitra a much more reasonable and relateable character than a lot of other action heroes and makes the action feel more credible. I'm especially pleased that Survivor pulls this off because I absolutely would have forgiven them for non-real action in a female-lead Sword and Planet movie.

Dialog is not great. For most of the movie, Kate Mitra is alone anyways, and when she is around someone she could talk to, she's usually understandably out of breath or emotionally shocked by the last crazy thing that happened. However, I think there's a certain realism to this, you do get the impression that Kate is stomping out her own feelings because she has to survive. Plot isn't particularly twisty or turny either, she's basically just lurching from one disaster to the next until the director runs out of film, but if you're a fan of Flash Gordon or John Carter stories, that's pretty true to the genre. And to be honest, bad dialog or plot would have ruined the movie, so I'm okay with the decision to keep the movie focused on stunts and bare shoulders.

Everybody's a critic

[siderite · 7/10 · 26 August 2015]

This film is, indeed, all about Danielle Chuchran. She is beautiful, incredibly athletic and a quite decent actress. The sci- fi in the film is of the type of Firefly, you know, you go to another planet and there are American cowboys there. So not that much. However, the few sci- fi bits in the story did further it, so in my mind that part was a success.

After enjoying the hell out of Shadow of the Cabal, I had to see this movie as well, especially since it starred Danielle, and I can tell you it did not disappoint. The story, as usual (shame, Arrowstorm!), was a bit silly, but simple enough to not bother me tremendously. Kevin Sorbo did play a larger role, although it's becoming a pattern in these films: he appears as some sort of father authority figure, does a few scenes, then splits.

The action scenes were really good, as expected from a professional stunt actress, but also the director has to be good at it. The scenes were great and reminded me of the orc elf battle that hooked me when watching Shadow of the Cabal. The implanted computer, scanner and holographic screen was a great addition and allowed the story to move fast over some logistical problems like how people find each other, coordinate over large distances and detect food or injuries.

There were issues with the film. The technical details in the introduction almost threw me off completely in the beginning of the film. The character of Weston was ridiculous and completely unnecessary - they could have done more with him. Also they took their sweet time to "get it". I won't spoil it here, but as a hint just listen carefully at the alien language and you can figure it out in the first 15 minutes.

Other than that, few characters and a lot less character development made this almost a pure action film. Danielle was great, and also Melanie Stone, which you may (barely) recognize from the Mythica series. Sorbo acted well, but his character was a little bit ridiculous. He had a lot of scenes about bones and almost all cracked me up - no pun intended (OK, I did intend it a little).

It is far from perfect, but was one of the best movies in this particular genre and I really don't understand the mostly mean comments the film has received here. I mean, if they would have used cars instead of running around it would have been Mad Max, and you bloody loved that one!

She Is So Mighty

[bemyfriend-40184 · 5/10 · 18 March 2021]

And Saves the Human Race. Oh, my "Review is too short". Now, it's not.

Familiar and predictable, but passably entertaining

[I_Ailurophile · 5/10 · 19 July 2021]

It's okay.

Early scenes feel rather perfunctory. The protagonist's inner thoughts are voiced as a monologue providing exposition; training sequences are mildly ham-handed. A stand-in father figure offers kernels of wisdom and substituted affection, and this all transpires within 10-15 minutes to get to the bulk of the narrative.

Once the plot begins, John Schafer's music, while suitable, immediately evokes greater drama and thrills than the fast pace allows us to naturally feel. That pace also means that action scenes and story beats feel forced, and not organic. The extraordinary capabilities of protagonist Kate, honed through training, are impressive - but maybe too much so to be believable. In fact, the course of events feels so ordered - fabricated - that 'Survivor' begins to seem as though it were written like a videogame. For much of the film, moments take place not out of genuine narrative flow, but because it's what the experience demands. As two prime examples, consider the sheer amount of time devoted to shots of Kate running, or climbing, and the direly casual reveal of the plot twist that comes with about one-third left.

A plot twist, mind you, that we saw coming pretty early on, and which pointedly echoes older, very recognizable sci-fi tales or horror flicks.

Still, some stunts and shots look particularly good; fight sequences are actually pretty fun in their choreography. Fine costume design, props, hair, and makeup build the suspension of disbelief we may otherwise have difficulty sustaining for lack of meaningful engagement, and the filming locations are pretty swell. Visual effects are a bit of a mixed bag, yet so long as a character is simply interacting with an aspect realized with computer graphics, and not wholly immersed in an artificial environment, the result is fair in execution.

The cast is mostly adequate in their performances, presumably limited by the directness of John Lyde's screenplay and direction. It's unfortunate that the most capable actor involved (Melanie Stone) has little time on screen in a small supporting role. If nothing else, lead Danielle C. Ryan demonstrates enough potential that I wouldn't mind seeing more of her pictures.

For all its flaws, 'Survivor' is modestly entertaining. The story is rushed, and derivative, but still satisfactory enough to hold our attention. The ending - as ham-handed, if in a different way, as the beginning - nonetheless feels rewarding. The film is put together reasonably well; it works, on its chosen level.

And that's the key. There's no question that this is a few steps below a production backed by a major studio, and even other projects originating in crowdfunding have managed their resources better. Anyone coming across 'Survivor' is sure to already know what to anticipate. But if you're willing to accept the limitations of one picture's construction, just as we accept bad science for the sake of the premise, then the feature becomes something we can just sit back and enjoy without actively attending to it.

It's not the most fulfilling ride in the world, and I can honestly say I hoped to like it more than I do. Still, if you're looking for a sci-fi action thriller and aren't especially discerning in your preferences, 'Survivor' is enjoyable enough if you come across it.

Not a total disaster

[imdb-21792 · 3/10 · 12 March 2020]

A beautiful girl running being chased around some beautiful scenery (in Utah) by a bunch of aliens wearing WWII surplus gas masks. Descent musical score. Beyond that, forgeddaboudit.

Not entertaining at all

[koenbeerens-15188 · 3/10 · 26 March 2018]

I didn't finish the movie. At times, I had the feeling I was watching a Power Rangers episode. Disappointing.

Laughable drivel

[iamtherobotman · 3/10 · 24 February 2022]

So to put the plot of this film in a nutshell...

Woman runs around 'Alien' landscape, climbing rock faces, and running around 'Alien' landscape, while often climbing rock faces.

That is pretty much it. For some reason, this reminded me of that 80's cult classic 'The Beast Master'. This was basically just a vehicle for this blonde Woman to show her 'athleticism', just as 'The Beast Master was a vehicle for Mark Singer to flex his pecs.

The dialogue for the most part, was a complete mess, and often made no logical sense.

This is a poor effort of a film.

Not as bad as expected

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 6 June 2023]

SURVIVOR is a sci-fi adventure flick that's a little better than I was expecting, considering it was funded by a Kickstarter campaign which is usually a bad sign. The unknown-to-me Danielle C. Ryan plays one of a team of astronauts who find themselves flying through space from a rapidly destructing Earth. They crash land on a remote desert planet, but soon find threat in the form of aggressive humanoids and flesh-munching alien monsters. The cast is mainly unknown and quite bland, although it's nice to see former HERCULES star Kevin Sorbo playing the guy in charge. One thing this does have going for it are better CGI effects than expected, almost as good as mainstream Hollywood.

The Running Woman. Not for everyone, but enjoyable.

[clauzy82 · 7/10 · 18 April 2020]

The Running Woman. This is just one of those films that you find enjoyable but you don't know why, maybe it's something to do with a gorgeous woman running everywhere (Run Lola Run comes to mind) don't let that fool you it has not got the depth of Run Lola Run. The acting is poor in this film apart from the lead Danielle Chuchran (Kate Mitra) who holds up extremely well and she really looks the part. Kevin Sorbo (Captain Hunter) is also himself full of cheese which is a good addition. The action although very entertaining and Chuchran puts on a great performance to keep the action sequences alive, but it is also very inconsistent to the storyline and can make the viewing frustrating-an alien invincible in one scene is very vulnerable in another. The plot is simple, the storyline is full of holes, the aliens have a post apocalyptic 80's throwback feel to them. The atmosphere created keeps this film together along with Chuchran and just draws you in for the long haul, did I mention she is running everywhere. I watched it from start to finish twice just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, but no it's well worth the watch, in saying that I won't be adding it to my collection anytime soon unless I see it for 1 euro in the bargain bins then I'll happily buy it. Give us more of Danielle Chuchran, she did well to keep this film entertaining. Not for everybody, but an enjoyable film. Probably more a 6.5 than a 7.

Hot girl runs and fights.

[tommaguzzi-96171 · 3/10 · 10 June 2020]

That's it. After she lands on the planet the same scene is repeated over and over. 110 pound girl defeats larger stronger men who helpfully attack her one at a time. I made only made to the end with lots of fast forward and I know I didn't miss any vital plot points because there aren't any. 3 stars for the hot girl that's it.

MAD MAX meets Sleestaks

[iamjamalwhite · 7/10 · 6 June 2022]

Good flick. Made sense. Good plot and well directed. Special effects were better than expected. Definite bad guys. Good ending. We enjoyed it. Much better than a 4 that is the average here.

Weak...

[RosanaBotafogo · 6/10 · 17 May 2020]

The effects are hard goods, the story looked good, in the style of "The 100", but it went a long way when it focused only on the protagonist and her running through rocks, fields, fighting against little monsters (I liked them) and human evildoers ... Everything sounds too fake , all dialogue, does not help ... Weak ...