The Last Sentinel

Where do I start - movie started with an interesting monologue that made me think its actually worth watching. But everything later was one disappointment after another.

For starters, action scenes are too long and repetitive. It seems like they tried to fill the void with guys in black rubber suits and blue goggles marching and some horror music playing in the background... oooooh, so frightening! There are lots of (long) shooting scenes where super-soldiers were too dumb to take cover but instead stood still in plain sight - no wonder they got slaughtered.

Most of the movie is in ruins with the girl and hero guy and very few other actors, lot of survivalist crap one-liners, absolutely predictable plot and cardboard characters.

Storyline is very weak, seems it was either written for a 12-year-old or by a 12-year-old, its hard to tell which is it.

And I only gave it a three (and watched the whole thing) because of Katee Sackhoff aka Starbuck, because I like BSG series a lot and respect the actors there - this movie is total and utter nonsense that deserves subzero ratings.

This is the worst movie I've seen in some time. It starts off with a mildly interesting -- if rather unoriginal -- premise: Man's technology has turned against it's creator. This has been done a million times, of course, but it can still yield an entertaining action flick if done well.

This was not done well.

The script must have been painful to read. I would feel sorry for any actor asked to work with such excrement. To see Don Wilson and Katee Sackhoff, both of whom have much more potential, forced to wade through this quagmire was just sad. You know you've got script problems when the best dialog comes from a crazy, talking gun.

A plot would have been nice, too. And, no this movie doesn't have a plot. It has a premise. There's a difference. The entire movie consists of: "These are the bad guys. They shoot at us. We shoot at them." There were endless scenes of running and gunning, with a few scenes of sitting talking about the next/previous run-and-gun scene.

One major annoying aspect was that the movie couldn't seem to make up it's mind if Katee Sackhoff was supposed to be the tough, independent type or the "maiden in distress" type.

The absolutely gratuitous and completely unbelievable romantic parts were just pathetic. It was like somebody said, "Insert a romantic gesture here." Monotonous sets, and only two of them. Footage was re-used. Annoying, obvious clichés (storm troopers in masks, bad guys who cannot hit anything they shoot at, tracking device in the skull). Outright contradictions in places.

The only reason I give it 2 and not 1 is that the pyro effects and sets, while totally uninspired, were at least competently done.

The best part of this movie is the ending. Not the final scenes -- the fact that it ended.

In a futuristic setting automated drones which were initially created to help humans have rebelled and are now attempting to destroy all of mankind. The only chance available to the human race are electronically enhanced soldiers who are patched into the computerized rifle they carry with an eye cap implant. The computerization is so advanced that it becomes a part of the soldier and communicates verbally with him. However, the drones are even more advanced and after several hard-fought battles only one soldier by the name of "Tallis" (Don Wilson) is left alive. As luck would have it though he manages to rescue an injured woman (played by Katee Sackhoff) who belongs to a "para-military" group desperately attempting to destroy a drone communication center. Although she is nowhere near as capable as Tallis she at least gives him a long-lost sense of purpose and they soon team up to fight the numerically superior drone army by themselves. Anyway, rather than detail any more of the film and possibly spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that while there was plenty of action it could have been much better if it had had a better script. Be that as it may, those who enjoy apocalyptic sci-fi films might find something to like but even so it's still not a top-of-the-line movie by any means. That said I have to rate it as slightly below average.

For some reason I thought going into this that this was a new mini-series on SciFi for Katee Sackholm since Battlestar is supposedly closing up shop after the next season. I probably don't need to tell you that I was wrong, but boy am I glad I was. This was such a terrible movie on so many levels.

First, there is absolutely no character development - None! Seriously! And, of course, that doesn't keep the two main characters from having sex, 'cause, well, that's what a guy and a girl in a super low budget awful film do.

Add to the lack of character development the completely re-hashed plot idea (robots take over the world - Terminator, The Matrix, and hundreds of other films) and the unbelievably undeveloped story line and you get a terrible, terrible film.

As I was watching it I kept looking to my wife and saying, "And this is what happens when you shoot a movie without an actual script. You see, you just set up a whole bunch of fight sequences and then say action and film." I've never been in the military and I could have given the film more realistic guidance on how soldiers behave in war.

Rarely do I sit and hope for a film to end, but I did with this one. Sci-Fi should funnel its money into the programs it cares about - its series, not these ridiculous, written-by-monkeys, movies.

I am actually watching this film right now on syfy, was a little dubious at first, we have so much in the way as low budget features being created at an independent level, I feel this film does deserve some credit.

The sets, some of them at least are brilliant, would not say no to having access to some of those myself. Directing, well, I say this as a film director myself, I learn all the time, both manually and technically.

Story though, I feel this could have been developed much better, like the characters, they need development through the film as they become introduced to the audiences, personally, I feel this wasn't done to much effect.

On a technical note, my only issue was the poor lighting scenes and the grainy picture, this is a problem with many low budget films and a lack of ability to light appropriately, it doesn't happen in every dark scene thankfully and I have seen worse grain on other films when in confined, dark spaces (Wolf Creek, a good film, let down by this technical issue), my only other little issue is with some of the effects, it's 50/50, some are orchestrated brilliantly, others are more 'what the hell was that?', but it's much cheaper to create and exploding head in edit than it is on the set I guess.

So I rated it 6, it could have had some great potential, but hey, it got a sale and since I am in the same industry right now of low budget features have the utmost respect for those who made this film