A.I. Assault

Wow, you ARE a picky bunch, aren't you? Look, this is a SciFi (now SyFy) channel movie. We all know what we're in for before the movie even starts. You can't compare it to the 100-200 million dollar theatrical releases. SyFy cranks these babies out on the cheap, and you get what you'd expect; SFX that can be done on home PC's, B and C grade actors, and older actors that are now out of fame and just looking for something to do.

In this case they did a cool thing and brought in Star Trek alum from three versions of the franchise; Takei, from TOS, Dorn, from NG, and Picardo, from Voyager. SyFy offers these guys maybe $25,000 for a couple days work on what are, essentially, extended cameos. They sit around between shots, sipping martini's and reminiscing over the old times. They give half-baked performances, get one or two minutes of screen time each, cash their checks and go home. Hell, I'd do it. For their part, SyFy gets to use their names for promoting the film.

As SyFy channel movies go, this one was OK. Fact is, I thought the SFX were better than in many of these little time-wasters. They go cheap and don't worry about details, like captain's bars on their collar and sergeant's stripes on their sleeve (this from one of the movies I saw a couple years ago). My favorite from this one is that all the Special Forces guys are carrying M16A2's, except one guy, who's using a 50 year old M16A1. Not a chance this would happen in real life, but to be honest, I think they do a lot of that stuff on purpose, to give guys like me the fun of spotting those errors.

It's just campy fun, like Snakes On A Plane, and if you watch until the first commercial break you'll know the entire plot, and after that you can go to the bathroom, grab another beer, or answer the phone and have no fear that you'll miss a vital plot point.

So lighten up, people. This fluff won't kill you, and let's face it, the other 80 channels are all filled with stuff like Real Housewives of Barstow, Law & Order reruns from the 1990's, and Tory Spelling movies (Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?).

I'd say this was an average SyFy channel effort.

Another made-for-Tele movie which is completely horrible. There is barely any plot, the acting, writing, and of course the god-awful directing of today's worst director and Ed Wood impersonator, Jim Wynorski, who, when not making terrible plot less porn movies with hideous women, is making crappy straight to video or Sci-fi "original" movies. Basically this is a bad rip-off of War of the worlds, and to top it all off, it's another failed attempt of a Sci-fi original movie. If Sci-fi continually pulls bad ideas out of their ass with overtones of someone Else's' films, then the horror business if being dug to an early grave. Which is sad because I am a horror filmmaker myself of what one may call 'b-flicks' but when I see these computer-generated bloody bull-crap, it makes me want to throw up. If this movie comes on the Tele again, kill yourself, it will make you hate your remaining life.

Well, I can tell is a Sci Fi channel assault on our intelligence. They have some Star Trek actors and actor from B5 on the movie, Everyone needs to work even stars from long faded shows. The computer generated robots were decent and the storyline had promise. My problem with this film is as follows: (1) I just love movie military personal with hair too long. (2) This movie supposedly take place on an island near Fiji, why is everyone wearing a jacket. We have a few shot of the tropics, but the rest of the movie seems to be filmed in the Pacific Northwest. It would be an otherwise decent film if they spent a bit of time on the details.

Wow. Some of my favorite actors are completely wasted in this movie. They try, some more than others, but they can't save this clunker of a script in the hands of an incompetent director. Oh look, the writer and director are the same person: Jim Wynorski.

You can tell that this movie had a reasonable budget, but Jim Wynorski doesn't know what to do with it. All of his shots are uninspired and clunky. Likewise, the editing is amateurish. A first year film student could do better.

The CGI effects are clean, but they are not integrated well into the live action scenes. Human actors react to things that don't happen, or are out of sync with the CGI action. For example, while being attacked, someone is thrown to the ground by a CGI robot that never gets anywhere close to the actor.

Additionally, the music is really lame. Casio keyboard quality from someone's basement.

But the worst element is the script. Everything about it is terrible. The story, the lines and the characters are all pathetic.

The only things keeping the movie from being a 1 rating are the actors and the rest of the production staff. The camera work is good, as are the costumes, sets, sound, etc. i.e. it's a well-made crappy movie.

It actually gives you the illusion that the dialog isn't completely under-developed. I actually didn't find the acting to be terrible, if they were given some decent lines, well actually if this movie was completely re-written, it would have been a hell of a lot better.

The special effects were entertaining, I'm sure the film crew were on a limited budget, and I give them props for what they managed to squeeze from I'm guessing, an already dry lemon. Well aside from the plane scene... But then again, nothing can be made perfect. If you rent this movie, you should expect it not to be worth you're money, because there's a lot of other sci-fi movies out there. But if you you don't care about a measly dollar, then get it out, for a laugh at least. ;)