Battle for Skyark

How do films like this get made? I'm sure that I'll never know. But somebody spent a fair amount of cash producing this nonsense.

The good: It's short? The bad: Everything else. There is no discernible plot of any kind. The characters actions make absolutely no sense. There's no exposition, no climax, no goal to achieve, and it ends as a cliffhanger. The acting is unforgivable. No part of the story makes the slightest attempt to follow a thread of logic. Kids are beating up/killing adults at every preposterous turn. The fortified camp of survivors on the planet's surface is essentially a ring of shopping carts pushed together with some cardboard for extra reinforcement. The dialogue is embarrassing for any genre regardless of expected audience. The special effects don't even make sense (is the "skyark" a few hundred feet above the ground hovering or in orbit? You'll never know; you'll never care). As a distraction for sitting through this dreck, I tried to think of a worse film that I've ever watched; all I could come up with was "Ski Patrol" ... maybe, but Ski Patrol at least had a dog that could fart on command which exceeds any of the talents in Battle for SkyArk.

The verdict: This is not worth your time, money, or effort to make sense of. It's simply one of the worst movies that has ever been made. It has absolutely no redeeming virtues. Nothing that could have been done to this film could possibly have made it worse - it is the low marker for judging movies. Imagine the worst anime that you've ever sat through being turned into a live-action film by a group of 5 junior high school students with a handicam... that is better than this by a factor of 100. Run away!

INTRO: Unfortunately, I was bittersweetly disappointed with this movie; let's break it down...

BUDGET: Clearly Too Low. Movies are expensive, but it seems clear to me that this movie was out of it's budget's league. At least the movie got finished, which is in and of itself an accomplishment, but it seems like there wasn't enough to give it the polish and finesse that the concept really deserved. I think this could have been a gem, but I get the impression someone got a little too ambitious and jumped the gun.

FX: Not bad, but rather sparse for Sci-Fi. The environment, and elements that required obvious Motion-Graphic/3D treatment were pretty well done; they didn't distract or disconnect you from the movie, and that's really all you NEED. Having said that, given that it's a sci-fi flick (and that the cover sort of gives a similar impression), it didn't seem like there was a whole lot going on in terms of digital effects; much of the visual effects seemed to be done on set, which is fine for keeping costs down, but also doesn't allow you to edit and refine things in the post-production stage; that can make all the difference when trying to add more intensity to an otherwise 'flat' scene.

ACTING: It felt forced. It didn't come across as natural at all; there were a couple actors and a couple of moments where things 'felt right', but it was a really mixed bag, feeling forced overall. Maybe (again) the budget constraint caused the process to be rushed, or maybe because the movie's target audience is kids, the decision was made to just 'rough it'... or maybe there was too much work placed on too few people, causing burnout(?)... Either way, direction, takes, and/or talent were lacking for a polished experience.

PACE: Too slow. The movie really seems to drag on more than anything and emotionally flat-line throughout large swaths of the film. Due to the level of acting, lack of effects, and lack of developing/fleshing out the overall storyline, it feels like lots of time is wasted with what can only be described as "awkwardness".

STORY/CONCEPT: Good, but needs some fleshing out. Overall, the concept was actually great. The problem, however, was its vision. The animated introduction was a little complex (given the amount of info vs time), then throughout the movie we have long periods where really next to nothing is developing, and then nearly everything is revealed at the end. The middle, where conceivably the conflict would REALLY begin to gaining traction, was more of a whimper; not even the characters were fleshed out or understood as individuals to a point where one could connect with them on an emotional/personal level. Also, most of what was revealed at the end was rather predictable and not really much of a revelation by the time it was formally stated. Thus, much of what was displayed at the beginning of the movie and unveiled at the end should have been evenly spread out throughout to make it less turbulent to digest.

DETAILS: Too many "ugh" moments. - Even though I loved how the SkyArk looked, it drove me nuts seeing it within Earth's atmosphere, and then seeing it clearly orbiting the Earth in space only moments later. It seemed rather inconsistent. - The monsters aren't scary, and often-times they were just so lethargically slow and awkward. They looked a little neat, most notably the semi-transformed individuals near the end, but they didn't seem super-human enough in terms of speed and ability. - No blood... really? This movie needed a little more blood; the weapons were always clean, and even the only gun-shot in the movie didn't have any audio/visual weight/impact to it; you'd almost have been better off to zoom out the window, make a flash, and have it be an implied death. - As an adult, I found myself rolling my eyes and sighing too often in regard to the acting/character progression. The mannerisms, the gestures, the movements, the lines... there was just way too much lacking, giving the impression of extreme cheesiness. Part of me thinks this should be a series of movies or a web-series, and the story should begin earlier; that whole intro should have been a movie on its own where you focus on getting the fundamentals spot on, and then use this base as a springboard to get on to the more complex sequences in a sequel.

FAVOURITE LINE: "To survive in a world of monsters, you have to become a monster. You can stop this; all this pain and suffering... Drink!" - Rusty I'm so glad this movie had a line to really reflect on and provoke thought; in my case it actually reminded me of something Hitler is said to have believed regarding control and how the only way one can change a given power structure is to rise to the top.

CONCLUSION: All in all, my frustrations with this film are bittersweet and in a sense almost a compliment; the concept has SO MUCH AWESOME potential to be a solid family movie, but it currently isn't fleshed out enough in any area. I definitely wouldn't throw out the concept, but I'd start it over in a few years after REALLY fleshing out the story/'universe' more and developing the characters with increased complexity.

The movie is supposed to be futuristic but the way it's made it looks dated and old. The actors are young and inexperienced (I hope so) The story is boring and predictable but is presented in most chaotic manner. The CGI effects are basic and poor quality. If you want to make a low budget movie - I don't think science fiction is a good option.

Now my opinion on the movie - It's kind of movie where you wish there was a negative ranking on IMDb. Where you can give a movie -2 or -3 because there is hardly anything good in the movie and it's full of mistakes, awful acting and cheap CGI. It can become the 'Room' one day and people might start watching it as it's so bad. The minimum length of review on IMDb is 10 lines otherwise just the word 'awful' will do sufficient job in describing this movie. As previous reviews mention - if you are having difficulties sleeping - this is a good movie to put on. You can get around your friends and family and have a laugh watching this as well. Enough said.

The movie is indeed a movie...that's about it. It kind of seemed from previews it was supposed to be some sort of battle between the city in the sky and the rejects left on or sent back to earth. Yet, 80% of the movie you are trying to figure out about some sort of rebellion or what shadows are and the main character trying to find some guts. The little bit of CGI in the movie is 1 or 2 scenes that are repeated over and over again. The acting is pretty rough and forced with little to no emotion. Action scenes are horrendous. Costumes are somewhat on point but the movie is obviously low budget and you can tell. Oh well, it is worth the watch if you have absolutely nothing else to do and want to cringe a little and try to solve the mystery of Battle for Skyark.

Battle for SkyArk: a movie with no battle for the aforementioned Ark. All we get are a handful of kid bums with laughable weaponry, pitted against unconvincing "monsters" who could die... of laughter when they see the so-called weapons. The whole movie drags through, the one massive monster is yet another take on the guy-turned-giant-monster- with-mask-and giant-weapon we've seen hundreds of times, from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome to the Resident Evil and Silent Hill movies/games franchise. No development at all, just kids scurrying through what seems to be a huge junkyard. I had few hopes, considering the score given by other viewers, but I didn't think it'd be such a sad sight. The kids do what they can, I won't throw them the stones, they're all very young actors. Whoever made the movie though, should consider a change of career and run said junkyard instead. At least, they'd get an honest pay for piles of rubbish.