Red Faction: Origins

First, I had never heard of the Red Factions game before reviewing this movie. I'm looking at it as a stand alone SciFi movie from SyFy Channel. I'm a sucker for Grade B Science Fiction movie so it looked worth trying.

For SyFy Channel, it wasn't that bad. There was no ridiculous monster eating damsels in distress. The special effects were adequate, but with CGI computer horsepower these days it doesn't take much. The sets and much of the production team were Bulgarian, but this is SyFy channel and you expect the best in Bulgarian film making. The actors were OK, but that's rarely the problem with these movies. What's usually the problem with SyFy Channel movies is the script, and that was kind of OK. Not an immortal classic but you didn't cringe.

I give it a fair six. It's worth seeing on a slow afternoon with a pizza.

First off it is important to note that this is a fairly low budget production - a made for TV-movie (Wikipedia info: feature-length science fiction television movie pilot produced by Universal Media Studios and UFO Films debuting on SyFy, it is the first film based on the Red Faction series of video games.)

When you know this, you are aware that the CGI effects might not be avatar crisp, and they aren't! However - they are far above what i had expected, and the story is surprisingly believable. There are a few lose ends, like the reasoning behind some decisions made by various people throughout the movie, but never the less, i have seen plenty of A-list movies where the storyline are way more scrambled and nonsensical than this one.

The general level of the acting is quite good. Especially Brian J. Smith - whom you might know as Lieutenant Matthew Scott from the TV series SG Universe, and Danielle Nicolet has a very solid performance.

The best way to describe this movie, IMO, is a mix between Dune, Star Wars and the feeling you get when playing the game. (And Fallout 3 / new Vegas) Gritty feel, good vs. evil and sci-fi elements... good stuff :-D

I would tell everyone who likes the game, enjoys sci-fi, or likes a good adventure story with a classic "one man and his struggle to make everything right"-frame, to give this movie a chance.

The good: Solid acting Good story A Game-to-movie attempt above the normal standard It's a sci-fi....! :-D

The bad: Sub par CGI compared to A-list movies - but not horrible at all! A few actors who "feels like" B-actors A few plot holes, non to major though

I came into this movie thinking it was another Uwe Boll experience, but i was presently by what Michael Nankin had done with this movie and it's limited budget. It only gets a 7/10 from me, because it does have some of the "made for TV" characteristics, but for what it is, it is one of the best ever!

I've never played the video game, nor have I ever heard of it (other than the recent TV ads for its latest release) so I can't write much about how authentic or faithful it is to its roots. This, in a sense, is a good thing, since a movie should be able to stand on its own.

'Red Faction: Origins' clearly proves two things. The first is that you don't need gazillions of dollars to make a halfway decent movie. Sure, it will certainly not be an Oscar contender, and it uses plenty of (sometimes soap-operaish) clichés and plot twists - some of which you will likely see miles ahead - but compared to the usual idiotic mess that Sy Fy scrapes up from the bottom of their production barrel, this is actually pretty good! It has got a fairly interesting and cohesive story that doesn't violate the basic rules of logic, it has engaging actors/characters, serviceable (if rather low-budget) sets and props, and SFX that range from low- to medium-TV quality. Brian J. Smith is proving himself again to be a reliable performer, Danielle Nicolet is fairly good, and there is a whole host of well- and semi-well-known actors who offer up (mostly) solid work - though the characters as written don't necessarily offer much to work with.

The other thing this movie proves is that Sy Fy is obviously capable of producing SF B-movies of reasonable quality - which means all the crud they have been pushing unto the long-suffering fans for nearly a decade is not by accident; they must be doing them on purpose. And this thought, frankly, is both depressing and maddening.

If you are an SF fan, 'Red Faction: Origins' is well worth watching. Again, not in the same class as 'Dune' or some other, more polished efforts, and SyFy sure as heck didn't invest more money in it than the absolute minimum they could get away with, but it is solid Sunday afternoon/evening entertainment. In short: the first SyFy movie in a decade or so that didn't send me into screaming fit of rage over SyFy Channel's industrialized incompetence.

I wanted to like this film but it just would not let me. I find it excessively annoying that other reviewers compared it to games that I have never played or ever will. I wanted the movie to stand on its own merits. Battling the forces of nature on Mars is intriguing but battling the same old bad guys is not. The only recognizable actor was an aged and bloated Robert Patrick (Terminator 2). The rest were a bunch of strangers. This is a futuristic tale about a young brother and sister separated during a raid but the grown up brother finally finds grown up sister in the clutches of a maniac (with the requisite black eye patch). Brother gets sister back and patches up the conflict between the factions. Snore!

While not strictly faithful to the game its still close enough to be relevant(think Dune movies vs. Books) and captures the theme of the games pretty well. And its not as if the games have such a fantastic story to begin with, at least not the newer titles.

This movie has some great actors from US and UK sci-fi shows and they all do a pretty good job. Certainly you will have seen them all put on better performances but they are all capable actors. The story was pretty good although it would have been just as good a movie set during the time frame of the games and opened up a potential franchise of decent TV movies or miniseries.

Certainly worth watching for fans of the game and its a great example that just because its a game doesn't mean the movie has to suck. Yes I am talking to you Herr Boll. And as a standalone movie it is brilliant even better considering it is a TV movie. And its by far the best syfy movie I have seen in a long time if ever and if it had more budget it could certainly have had a successful theatre release.

A solid movie and an excellent watch, its pretty much a 6 but I gave it a 7 for being an example of a game adaptation done right and some favourite actors having good parts.