Space Marines

Taking into account all of the major blockbusters coming out with their big budget effects and big name cast, they almost never have anything going for them except the fact that they have major effects and a big cast, enter SPACE MARINES, a film that didn't have a big budget or mind blowing effects or a big name cast but it was ten times more entertaining than any big film.

The storyline is simple and easy to follow, the cast all give better performances than most would let you to believe, the direction is well handled and it also has reasonable production values for a DTV film.

I recommend this film to anyone that wants to have a good time, it doesn't have the budget but the entertainment is there.

The only reason to watch this cliché ridden piece of crap is to watch John Pyper-Ferguson chew up the scenery as the villain. He's great! The accent wobbles a bit from time to time though. It was the fashion when this movie was made that all the baddies in Hollywood movies had to have English accents. Charles Dance, Alan Rickman, and Jeremy Irons made a lot of money out of this sort of thing. John Pyper-Ferguson blows them all away.

As I said up top there, the rest of it is cliché-ridden tosh with little or nothing going for it. The plot (such as it is) is a war movie and has clean shaven Gung-Ho Marines blasting vast numbers of evil-looking, scruffy, unshaven bad-guys (sometimes in slow motion*) and has just had SF element nailed onto it because... I dunno, maybe they got the SFX cheap.

As soon as the Rookie is teamed up with the Beloved Old Sargeant at the start of the movie you know that a/. the BOS is going to be dead by the end of the reel and b/. the Rookie will have redeemed himself with a selfless act of valour by the end on the film.

As soon as battle-hardened, sexy, young Marine is teamed up with innocent, Liberal, female diplomat (they obviously hate each other's guts on sight) you know that a/. they will end up in bed and b/. the innocent Liberal female diplomat will be blasting evil-looking, scruffy, unshaven bad guys by the end of the second act.

The film ends weirdly. It's a very anti-climactic ending after all the pyrotechnics and mayhem that leads up to it. It just stops. Rookie shoots Evil guy dead and manages to get himself killed as well - somehow - it's not very clear quite what happens. Then there is a quick Marine and Diplomat in bed moment. Then suddenly a shot that was obviously done as a gag on set. Credits. Bizarre.

So if you like watching men in uniform shoot scruffy biker types so stupid they stand up in plain sight while millions of people shoot at them This is the movie for you. Where do these megalomaniac villains get all their disposable goons from anyway? Is there some sort of Central Casting for Bad Guys. "Hi I'm a Megalamonic Villain set on Global Domination, I'd like to hire 200 idiots who can't shoot fish in a barrel please".

* By the way. How is it in crap like this, bullets make big, messy holes in people, whereas grenades just toss them up in the air to do nice, graceful somersaults?

...and why are all spaceships fitted with an 'Auto Destruct' button - even freighters, as in this movie? Trucks don't have an auto destruct button, cars don't, planes don't - so why do spaceships? (Answers on a postcard please).

I'm dead serious. I caught this one during a Showtime free preview weekend real late at night, drunk off my ass. I must say though, it wasn't that bad. The acting was fairly decent and John Pyper-Ferguson's Colonel Fraser was just an awesome bad guy. I'm serious, this unknown actor actually did an incredible job in an otherwise average B-movie. The action scenes ranged from p***-poor (rifles that eject spent casings, but make laser sounds?!?) to pretty cool. This was a better than average direct to video flick and not a bad way to kill some time though cliched as hell. I give it a 5/10.

STAR RATING: ***** Unmissable **** Very Good *** Okay ** You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead * Avoid At All Costs

In the future, all is kept fine and dandy by a group of men and women called The United Federation of Planets. But when some dastardly fellows take over a space-ship to enforce a gold deal, some fellows called the Space Marines are called in to sort them out.

This is a far glossier presentation than Talaat Captan's earlier work such as Digital Man and A.P.E.X., but it's still glaringly low budget. It all basically just feels like Under Siege in outer space (even the spaceship is named the Missouri as in Under Siege!) In fact, there are weird scene references through-out to that particular film that left me with the impression that the writer had some special kind of liking towards it. Aside from that, it's just the usual collection of clichés that are typical of a straight-to-video work such as this. Not to mention some really bad acting, from the token black guy to the lead bad guy who seems to think he's in some production of Hamlet at the local rep as opposed to such a flimsy piece of work as this. Glossier and more violent, certainly, but definitely not as enjoyable as Captan's earlier work. **

It's predictable, and not very realistic, but the stereotypes are so clear it's actually funny to watch!

Not in the same class as the Pink Panther films with Peter Sellers, but at least in the same category.

The bad guy seems to be a rip-off from a James Bond movie or something, but not as convincing.

One thing that surprises is that the film is rated for viewers 18 and up.

In all, a fine film to reset your brain with after a week full of ugly work, but nothing more.