Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar

I have to admit that when I sat down to watch the 2022 sci-fi adventure movie "Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar", then I wasn't really harboring the biggest of expectations to the movie. First of all, the movie's title just screamed low budget, and the cast ensemble wasn't exactly top of the line either.

However, I opted to give director Garo Setian's 2022 movie the benefit of the doubt and sit down to watch it.

The storyline in the movie, as written by Joe Knetter and Garo Setian, was watchable for what it was. And that was a generic space adventure. But hang on, I will say that there was a distinct atmospheric feel of the low budget space adventure sci-fi movies of the 1970s and 1980s. So if you enjoy those corny, campy space adventures, then perhaps "Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar" will prove entertaining and enjoyable for you.

I found little to be thrilled or entertained about throughout the 90 minutes that the movie ran for, and I will not be returning to watching it a second time. Then again, I am not overly keen on sci-fi in general, so that also speaks against this movie.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough, for the most parts. There were some toe-curling and cringeworthy acting from the actress portraying the main villain.

Visually then I will say that "Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar" was actually not bad. Sure, it wasn't impressive and in-your-face special effects that will blow you away. But in all fairness, then the CGI used in this 2022 sci-fi adventure movie was actually not bad.

My rating of "Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar" lands on a four out of ten stars.

To me, Michael Paré brings back my childhood, the B movies that were at the same time awesome and ridiculous. It's easy to understand why the first thing that pops up when you google him is "how old is Michael Paré?". Well, he's 65 and he now plays in these independent movies that are as low budget as they come. But they are also fun.

In this one, stupidly called Space Wars because there are just a bunch of people on ships shooting at each other and nothing at the scale of a war, three parties are engaged in finding either a legendary space treasure or each other in order to enact revenge. The CGI is ludicrous, the green screen effects are obvious, the acting is almost terrible, the story is pathetic. Yet I enjoyed it. Not because of any inherent technical quality of the film, but because someone scrapped to get this done, did whatever they could to make it happen and had fun doing it.

Bottom line: a ridiculous movie, but one that fills me with nostalgia for the films of old, where the greatest achievement you could think of was getting the movie done and the rest was the pure joy of performing.

3 stars, and only that high because of the talent that was wasted

Wow, where to begin? The acting was actually good-ish. I appeared that many of the crew actually knew wat they were doing. And nice to see the spent their CGI money well.

But the script and the scenes ... oh my. I haven't seen women dressed like that in a space movie since cassette tapes were competing against 8-tracks. And the dialogue, wow. Did you get the script from a cracker jack box?

Yeah, some of the reviewers were right, this COULD be considered a 'fun' movie in some terms. But even fun movies have good scripts. I hope none of the actors plan on using this as highlights in their resume.

Really, the title of this review says it all. In the 1970's there were a number of cheap Italian knock-off sci-fi movies that were cheap, flashy and stupid. They also had STYLE.

This is pretty much a homage to those movies but with better effects and better actors. Yes, the script is stupid and the lines are awful but incredibly the actors do actually manage to give them some weight. Not a lot of weight, it must be said, but that they managed it at all is very much to their credit. The script manages to throw in some surprises, while (sigh) still including the many predictable scenes you come to expect from low budget movies

It's a very silly movie but it's also a remarkably enjoyable one that manages to decently punch above its low budget and a lot of credit goes to everyone involved in its making. By way of disclaimer - I was NOT involved in the production in any way, nor do I know anyone who was. Nobody goes out of their way to make a bad movie. They try to make a good movie, and with the limited resources available to them they came reasonably close to it.

So, get some popcorn, turn off your brain and enjoy it for what it is. A romp.

Oh, and I just noticed that someone else called their review "The 1970's called, they want their movie back" Ah well, I clearly wasn't the only fan of cheap Italian sci-fi knock-offs.

This movie is not very exciting. The special effects are CGI. How I miss stop motion animation like Robocop 2. The matte paintings, models, and a decent new science fiction movie with some gratuitous nudity. I mean if you are going to make a low budget science fiction movie, write cheesy dialogue, cheaper cgi then can't you throw in something worth while like A pair of naked boobies? I mean either write Oscar worthy sentences or throw in some flesh scenes to make it worth the 90 minutes that are required To view this. Space Wars is just boring. Maybe they can make a remake of it and add in exceptional quality dialogue and an occasionall nip slip.

It's a dream I have. Skip it and watch Life-force from 1985.