Intergalactic Combat

Still relatively unknown even seven years after its release, INTERGALACTIC COMBAT is fairly noteworthy as a low budget martial arts flick and yet still entirely overlookable. Featuring an ambitious storyline and an entire dojo's worth of martial performers, the film tries to do the absolute most it can with its limited resources but ends up overextending its reach and looking amateurish and silly. I can't fault writer/director Ray Brady for trying, but I won't be surprised if the future installments of this intended series never come to fruition.

The story: When Earth is forcibly invited to partake in an intergalactic fighting championship by deadly aliens, a competition is held to determine our planet's best warriors. The film follows the trials and selection of the United Kingdom's national team, prior to the international trials.

The narrative here sucks, man. I've complained before about overstuffed backstories, but INTERGALACTIC COMBAT is thus far the worst offender, cramming the most intriguing part of the plot into the prologue. For the rest of the movie, the screenplay presents us with weird ideas (aliens using their hair as appendages), poorly-explained plot points (racist conspirators trying to keep the UK team all-white), and way too many characters for any audience to keep track of. Somehow, the filmmakers found time in an 84-minute film to illustrate backstories for at least nine characters, and while this is quite a feat, it's also too much to remember. Also, the movie juggles who its narrator is supposed to be until you're quite apathetic to whatever disembodied voice speaks over the scenes.

Technically, the movie remains in trouble, and its foremost problem is how very much it relies on dreadful-looking CGI. While this is used to make the alien technology and homeworlds look high-tech and impressive, the rest of the production looks bankrupt and pathetic. There's a bit of a shot-on-video feel to this one, and it's not aided by the imperfect audio, fluctuating lighting quality, and the poor conversion that renders the frame static several times. It's not the worst-looking picture I've ever seen, but it's never going to win any awards for aesthetics.

However, the main appeal here is the fight content, and in this regard, the picture flexes a bit of muscle. The collection of on screen fighters is superb: name actors include Gordon Alexander, the Rayment brothers, Silvio Simac, and Tom Wu, but no less impressive are lesser-known stars like Troy Titus-Adams, Kevin McCurdy, and Katie Cecil. The movie features an astronomical 35 full-length fight scenes; if that figure doesn't impress you, consider that the most fights Van Damme has ever had in a single movie is 21. At best, these brawls are pretty good, benefiting from the creativity of direct-to-video cinema. Disappointingly, the output can be pretty weak just as often, with many fights looking more like rehearsal tapes. With more mainstream films, I often complain about the intrusive effects of editing and the appeal of long, uninterrupted shots, but this film presents both sides of that coin - the shiny and the grimy.

If plans to make the promised sequel are still on the table, then my suggestion to the filmmakers would be to close in considerably on the strongest points. Forget about anything that requires CGI to create for now and focus on polishing the presentation of humans. Make the more mundane imagery a bit more fun to look at via better cinematography, and - I can't believe I'm writing this - consider filming fewer fights and try to make the remaining ones into show-stoppers. This movie isn't worth owning, but it has just enough going on for it that I'm truly hopeful about a potential sequel.

The entire cast of this vibrant film is game for martial arts adventures, but Silvio Simac as "Billy Boy" leads the pack with his star power and promise for leading roles in the future. Though Simac has frequently been cast as the heavy, often in movies with combat or arena settings, his work in "Combat" demonstrates that he is undeniably a screen hero in the making. In one scene, in which Simac rescues a homeless victim from street thugs, the actor is tailored to kill. The effective scene proves that Simac can dispatch a heavy action scene with both humor and elegance. Hollywood should take note and give him the lead roles in action films that he richly deserves.

Saw an add on shooters saying that you can download from Amazon Unboxed, bit of a bizarre way to finally release this film but whatever, I've been wating for this one for some time now and for the £1 quid rental price I thought I'd risk it for a biscuit, ncie one. Starts a bit weird and confusing but soon get's into to it, well lots of attractive women, tons of fight sequences, in dozens of different disciplines, lots count after twenty. Well the acting ranges form passable to VG considering the directors script leaves the actors a bit of a challenge but, on the whole a passable effort and a very pleasant surprise for a UK MA film, along with Steve Lawson's The Silencer this is another that stands out from the crowd of medium to low budget efforts produced in the UK over the last five years or so that are mostly violent cheap and nasty efforts. Thought Silvio was great but yet again he really needs more acting roles if he's ever really going to move up to the next level. Alexander was very convincing, would have liked to have seen more of the bed scene with ET but then again who wouldn't. Tons of action and the most looney build-up for a scene fight since The Good the Bad and the Ugly, re the tennis courts which ends like most fight in real life, over in seconds.On the whole well worth the wait, more please.

I got to watch a preview copy of this, my mate worked at the post house where this movie was on-lined, so I got to watch it through with him when he'd finished work. Considering it's low budget, there are a some exceptional special fx shots, a cool car jump and a and some lovely stunts, i.e. the motor bike accident. The martial-arts are excellent, old-school, no ramped fighting scenes, with some very nice clean combat sequences which haven't been cut and re-cut like some movies to make them work, great to see some long takes where the action and skills of the fighters are clearly evident, the roof fight is really quite epic. Elizabeth Tan plays Andromeda a very, very sexy alien Ambassador sent to Earth to help prepare the Earth team. Instead of having freaky gills or blue skin or whatever to show she isn't human, she has simply the capability to grow her hair at will and to use it as if it was another limb for her body, very cool, very clever and kinda erotic in a fetishistic way. Disappointed that the Aliens weren't more pro-active in the combat but I guess budgetary restraints prevented expansion in this area. On the whole though if you like like me your martial-arts, there's dozens of well choreographed stylish fight sequences, an enjoyable romp, kind of retro in style but refreshing in it's delivery. Recommended for martial-arts aficionado's everywhere, kids are going to eat this up if the film gets a PG certificate.