Clonehunter

I had fond memories of the series of cheap, low-brow 80's-90's movies starring Tim Thomerson as future cop turned bounty hunter Jack Deth. The first film, Trancers from 1985, was genre defining to me as a young film fan, with Blade Runner at the top and Trancers at the bottom of the grime & crime sci-fi genre; reminiscent of the old black & white movie detective or private eye film noirs of the nineteen forties and fifties. Clonehunter's bounty hunter David Cain is no Jack Deth - no tricks, no one-liners, and not tough as old boots. Gumshoe Philip Marlowe would have wrapped this plot up in the first reel.

Upfront I should say that I still don't know WHY I watched this film to the end, unless to confirm my suspicions that Clonehunter was as bad as I believed. Yes, it was. I've seen better directed, scripted and acted B&W B-movies from the 1950's with better more realistic special effects than Clonehunter. The direction was passable, the editing made viewing feel very episodic in nature like a string of webisodes cut together, and the cinematography was a huge disappointment from start to finish.

In fact many of the serial webisodes that have been proliferating on the web in recent years, shot on shoestring budgets have managed to display almost Hollywood quality production values. Values that are sadly lacking in almost every respect, with regards to this film. It could have been filmed in a underground car park or a warehouse set using an old VHS consumer camcorder, edited in a teens bedroom at night under the bedclothes and still produced a better on-screen result. Straight to DVD bargain bin stamped all over it.

The problem with watching short sample files is sometimes the same as watching trailers, they lull you in believing the whole film will be as watchable. Trust me, avoid this film and watch something else. I gave it a 3 score as it was cheesy but not complete trash. I am going to find all the old Trancers movies and remember the good old days of my youth.

Yes, super low budget. The effects were reminiscent of 2D comics! But I liked the story a great deal. Yes, some of the characters were over the top and nonsensical, but it was obvious that the actors had a good time making this film and the acting itself was decent. I can't fault the players. The dialogue wasn't special, but it wasn't bad either. Overall the film was entertaining and had good continuity, decent storytelling and held together. That is far more than you usually get with low-budget sci-fi like this. Worth watching on a lazy Friday night with a group of friends and a tub of popcorn. Oh and it's somewhat kid friendly depending on how you feel about non-sexual nudity. No graphic violence (ray guns, grappling fights), no sex and I honestly don't even recall any swearing. One gratuitous non-sexual full frontal nude scene by the female character (getting dressed). Lasts about 20 seconds.

I really wanted to like this as it was obviously made on the super cheap, but there's just too many strikes working against it. Repeated CG loops. Messy script Way too many tight shots to hide the lack of sets WAY too many lights pointed at the camera to hide the lack of sets. choppy editing and frame rate. They deserve all the credit in the world for the attempt, but the end products was just hard to take.

We've heard of movies being so bad they're good, so bad they're bad, but here's a film that's so bad it's cute. That is all I can really say about Clonehunters; it's cute. Definelty a horrible movie, but cute.

The film is clearly low budget, impossible to any be any higher than a few grand. It's a sci-fi film, the kind that's filmed entirely in a poorly lit warehouse, the kind where every shot is in front of a cheap blue screen that makes the entire thing look like a bad high school broadcast class project, the kind where random downloadable graphics and doohickies run rampant in every scene because THE FUTURE! Anyone who knows bad movies knows the type.

Every aspect of this film is terrible, although it still isn't the worst I've ever seen. The writing is almost something to be admired; it's as if an 11-year-old watched Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, and Alphaville, and decided to make a script with every single crime-noir cliche in the book: a depressed hardened "badass" main character who drink, the double-crossing twist, a dark city, bad narration, and more, all there.Despite the paint-by-numbers banality of the script, I almost think the film could've been decent, or at least charming, had a competent director helmed it with a modest studio budget. Unfortunately as it is, the film is clueless, with a main protagonist who literally stands around and does nothing, and a tough female sidekick who is meant to bust societal sexism norms but then spends the second half of the movie dressed into sultry revealing lace for literally no reason.

The worst part about this film is the lightning. Every single scene assaults the audience with eye-straining spotlights and artificial oversaturation. I'm not sure why the director thought to light the movie this poorly; maybe he thought more spotlights and sun flares equivalated to more futuristic? Every shot in this film is bleached out and often completely out of focus due the camera unable to process all the light shining directly into it. Perhaps the saddest part about it all is that the behind-the-scenes blooper reel actually shows scenes with exponentially better cinematography than the actual movie, meaning most of this terrible lighting was intentionally added in post.

Speaking of the director and behind the scenes material, there is a director interview that is clearly a self-interview from the director himself, where even THAT is abysmally oversaturated with articifial threshold lighting. The director seems to take his film very seriously, asking himself philosophical questions about the art of filmmaking intended for young inspirational filmmakers who he hopes to be watching, and this egotism ruins the entire film for me.

At least this film is short.

It's way too easy to bash films like these - horrible wooden acting, lack of any emotions, no budget, high school level special effects, silly plot, and so on and so on. But it would be unfair to compare a film by Andrew Bellware to a big budget Hollywood production. It is clear what he was going for - to tell a sci-fi story and have fun while doing so. Even though he must have known that only hard core sci-fi fans would find some enjoyment in it.

But that is not my biggest complain. What bothers me the most is the fact that there has been no sign of improvement on Mr. Bellware's side. I mean, he's been making these films for several years now. I've only seen three of them, but they all look the same! Same lighting, camera work, I wouldn't be surprised if he even used the same set in all of them. A limited budget is one thing, but a lack of talent is something else. I have the impression Andrew Bellware has reached his artistic hight and all of his other movies will look the same. I'll watch his future work only to see if I was right.

By the way, what is with that fetish concerning redhead women? Any explanation?