Fatal Conflict

Now that I've watched this on video I have a vague sense that I may have seen it in a theater. If it was ever in a theater. In any case,it is a sad effort and not even outstandingly bad enough to etch itself into the memory. Plot: girl in the future who has a Past can redeem herself with whatever government there is (embodied in a single official known as the Governor) by stopping an outlaw space craft that is hurtling down to destroy Los Angeles. She's intrepid; she's resourceful; she has martial arts moves. She finds chemistry with the captive commander of the destruction-bent craft. And it appears that all along the descending menace could just be taken out with missiles. Go figure. It is sad to see Jennifer Rubin here as a villain kinkily bonded to her brother. Silliest scene is probably the one with the female prisoner coming on to the suspected lesbian prison guard. See this while trapped at home waiting for a repairman.

The plot is as silly as it is funny: a band of bad guys, war-type like, strong and stupid as hell, commanded by an incredibly childish leader, and his pathetic sister (a sorry-I-have-gain-a-little-weight Jennifer Rubin), are captured by some kind of future police, (actually they are saving the sole survivors of a massacre set by Kari Wuhrer), and sent toward the nearest planet prision available.

Blaming a small meteorite (as some of the most unbeliavable stupid argument I've heard in a movie) the prisioners get free and take over the ship and set them to crash into L.A. Then there is no other option than to send Kari to the rescue: Relatives of the bad guys, we're sorry to inform you that a gorgeous little woman is about to terminate a full-armed, fierce (but stupid, nevertheless) bunch of baddies.

Ceirtanly the acting is lame, and the sets are extremely simple. (That's the advantage of simulating a space ship) A reasonable dialogue is almost non-existent, and the fights are boring.

On the other hand, some visual effects are nice. You get to see the typical women prision where every inmate is scantily clad. Kari Wuhrer looks beautiful, as always. And there is a fight scene between Kari and a big guy in a water tank which I found very exciting (perhaps the only one in the movie).

So, if you like Kari, or if you are a teenager with nothing else to do in the afternoon, or if you are into powerful, ruthless, terminator-like heroines, well, then rent it, but do it at your own risk. Otherwise, read a book.

I'm not a gun nut but if you are going to be in an action movie with gun scenes you should at least take a few hour course and that includes the special effects people. Hollywood promotes gun illiteracy and its sickening. Scantily clad women and upshots and down the shirt shots is par for the course for B movies in Hollywood but please stop promoting unsafe gun practice and expectations.

The movie itself Had very low expectations going into it. The plot has Johnny Mnemonic/Bladerunner vibes. Corporations vs government. If you have an hour and a half to waste, go play ping pong or sort your laundry. I will finish the show but I won't tell anyone its worth watching. I swear this was made for 12 year old boys just for views.

Borrows scenes from "5th Passenger". I saw this on Vudu, the Walmart streaming site. For the free movies, they probably get them in bulk from some provider. Many of them were made by the same source; who have overlap in the editing/splicing process. It gets five stars, because it did keep my attention. Some of the Vudu offerings are movies which are like trying to walk a dog; who doesn't want to go in that direction. You end up dragging the dog by the neck; and nobody has fun. Some movies are like that.

This is one of those SF movies that continues Hollywood's decades-long tradition of making fools of themselves in the SF genre. It's the story of Kari Wuhrer, sexy as always, who's a secret govt. agent blah blah blah. It opens with tasty footage of scantily clad women in metal chastity belts and collar and gag sets and skimpy T-shirts working on emeralds, which was obviously borrowed from an earlier Simandl flick, "Sleeping Dogs." It's by far the best thing in the movie, and Simandl did in fact make some subsequent movies that use them much more effectively, i.e. Rage of the Innocents.

The plot about the spaceship crashing into Los Angeles, which takes up the bulk of the movie, is really dull. It mostly involves people arguing, running, hitting each other and shooting each other, for no apparent reason. There are some delightful MST3K bits, like the official butt inspector and the shot of the Argos Women's Prison Colony dated 2029. Apparently, we will have interstellar colonies within thirty years, and the first thing we will build on them will be women's prisons! This is definitely a movie to mock as you watch it.