DEFCON-4

Def-Con 4 (1985) was a surprisingly good low budget take on World World 3. Despite the low budget and the cast of minor actors, it works. The landscape and the situations the residents on a heavily radioactive Earth are a lot similar to what it would actually be like compared to most movies that were made during this time.

A nuclear warhead equipped space station is circling above the stratosphere when the unthinkable happens. Nuclear holocaust! In a pickle, the crew aboard the space station must make several decisions in order for them to survive in a world that's nearly impossible to survive on. Can they do it? What kind of world awaits their return? A watchable film that will give you a good time if in the right mood.

Recommended.

It was the best of films, it was the worst of films... two words: "Engrossingly Mind-numbing". Def-Con 4 is truly an oddball. The script is incomprehensibly senseless. There is no story arc at all, it is simply a collection of characters improvising scenes. It is a great example of what I like to call "plotless development" or "one damn thing after another". The acting is uniformly bad with the exception of Maury Chaykin who is hilarious as a Canadian survivalist. I particularly love one scene in this film in which we see the detail of a mechanism of a booby trap. The booby trap has as its trigger a Canadian social insurance card. What kind of symbolism are we supposed to find in this? Either this is the deepest film I've ever seen or the it is the shallowest. Either it deserves a 10 or it deserves a 1, I'll split the difference and give it 5.

Def Con 4 is one of those movies that is pretty much unique in the world of B grade cinema. First off, why do so many imdbers dislike this? There are thousands, perhaps millions of movies far worse off. The acting and special fx are actually pretty good for such a low budget film. The beginning of the film has a great sense of dread. The music by Christopher Young is awesome! There is some over top emoting from the lead actors that is slightly lame, but overall a good relic from the cold war. This may be one of the more underrated Canadian sci fi movies of the 80s, although much of the plot and characterizations goes way lame in the second half. In summary, it's a good bad movie that is more good than bad.

I have to say that I am very surprised at the very low 3.5 rating! This film is very underrated and I must say that it is genuinely one of the best movies I've seen. Okay this movie is very low budget and at times cliché but the subliminal message of the whole storyline is intriguing. Not many people will see this but there are many references to past dictatorships and sociological theories. If you can try and watch the movie without acknowledging its low budgetness then perhaps you can witness some fine acting, particularly from Alan MacGillivray, who plays the eventual hero of the film, Boomer. I am surprised from his sheer excellence in his performance as Boomer, that his career did not extend to bigger and better things. This film is a hidden gem. Highly recommended.

This is definitely a B movie, the acting all needing a little coaching, and of course, now very dated. However, the actors are all young (save one or two), there is a pretty large cast and its easily possible to look past that. The script and the story are pretty solid. The sets/props are much better and at times this strange little concoction throes up a truly Mad Max quality Dystopia. The guns/gun blasts are tinny and a mistake. More attention here would have been an easy way to instantly improve this piece. But having said that I must confess it was an enjoyable experience. The cgi (or achieve footage?) of nuclear explosions seemed very real, was done well and gelled well with the flow. For a B movie I only counted two glaring plot holes, neither of which distracted from my enjoyment, and with a dash of tangental thinking may have just been explainable. The cinematography and editing have a modicum of flare. And lets not distract from how important and brave the ambition here. It's not as good as The Day After or Threads, but its plausible and not that far removed in comparison. For me it was good enough to have imagined it from that same universe as those two seminal works. And like I said, for me at least, it was never boring and I definitely enjoyed it.

I will note that the dvd cover art is misleading. At first I thought the movie must be about a cute robot!