Ghost Planet

Just finished watching this movie on Amazon Prime and enjoyed it. The special effects are pretty good even though I saw a car stereo (had bass /treble settings) turned at 90 degrees to make a door entry device. The three main characters are engaging and the plot is OK. It is always funny that the English play the bad guys, the Americans always like doing this for some reason. Most of the free movies provided by Amazon prime aren't that good so it was a nice surprise to be able to watch a fairly good sci-fi movie. There were a couple of good ideas about what the future would be like. The movie was 1 and half hours long which seemed to pass pretty quickly so I must have enjoyed it.

I thought this would be a bit like an old school space film like the Blake's 7 TV series but the story of 3 siblings on a space scavenger hunt to get the big payoff type adventure works well with a neat twist in the ending. The cgi is impressive for an indie film and I totally loved the use of miniature models and pyro for some scenes. The sets and costumes are impressive when you consider how many were required in addition to the cgi backdrops which must have be a huge task! The film also has a certain Luc Besson 5th Element style vibe in the music and background city scenes which is nice (I'm sure I saw a certain Bruce Willis taxi in there too!!). Overall a very watchable film even for a non sci fi fan.

First off, I'm writing this without reading any of the other reviews. This is what it comes down to. It's a pretty decent movie, even though shot low budget. It's another of the newer computer generated background films. Usually I detest those, but this is a little more. I find it pretty refreshing to see a movie with nobody I recognize in it. So no preconceived notiond about expectations. The "effects" are better than average for a low budget film, and they've used a few models, notably the land vehicles, but they're still pretty decent. And... a fairly good story/ plot, too. I watched almost the whole thing in one setting... but had to leave. Yet I was drawn back because I really wanted to see the ending. Again, not a "great" movie, but certainly watchable. I enjoyed it. Usually I turn these low budget things off after maybe 15 minutes. Perhaps I should have given it a 6..

Let's start with the the special effects, these are cross between Jerry Anderson's, UFO and Babylon 5. You can really tell that it is mainly CGI green screen and very little in terms of physical sets. When they do use physical sets you can see things like the car switches and even recycle symbols and the bottom of walls. So don't expect Star wars effects but they are OK. The acting is pretty wooden, but the actors try their best and keep the story moving forward at quite a nice pace. It is watchable for the 90 minutes it lasts. I think they could have made more of the girls story line which added a nice twist.

Obviously the amount of budget they had to make this movie was pretty small but they made the best of it and I definitely think it is worth a watch.

This movie is obviously made with very limited resources, including dialogue, acting, CGI.

The pacing is well, and the story itself not uninteresting. The characters, hmmm, ok, they have little more depth than in a soap opera of the 80s.

The acting seems wooden sometimes, but I blame this, as always, 70% on the director. He may have a good eye for scenery and filming, but actors leading skills should improve.

And there are the Effects. I often wonder why (even cheap) productions of today can barely match "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning" from 2005, made by a sole artist with his home PC (ok, it took him 7 years).

All in all, five stars seem sufficient for me, since the movie has many aspects of a professional production and did good enough to entertain me.