Astroesque

ASTROESQUE (2 outta 5 stars)

I have no idea what the title is supposed... even less of an idea of what is supposed to be going on in this movie half the time... yet, it still kept me sort of interested. This is low, low budget film-making along the lines of "El Mariachi", filmed in 16mm... and, for what it's worth, the shots are very well-composed and visually stylish. Directed, written by and starring comic book writer/artist Michael Allred... I guess it's no surprise that the film looks good. Unfortunately, some of the acting is beyond bad... and the rest is competent at best. Allred himself comes off the best... but only because he doesn't actually speak much. He just strides around looking cool most of the time... or running from crazed rednecks who are trying to kill him. The sound is also pretty bad... almost as if it was unfinished in places... maybe they couldn't afford to pay for the music they'd planned to use? Strange, vaguely science-fictiony plot... similar in tone to "The Man Who Fell To Earth"... but most of the film boils down to a standard run-from-the-bad-guys and kill-them-before-they-kill-you plot. Ultimately too oblique to be successful but not without interest for adventurous movie watchers.

Great start from first-time director Mike Allred. He can both write and direct in a cost effective way. After reading his Red Rocket 7 comic book series, I just had to watch the movie, and even though I had to order it all the way from America (I live in Hong Kong) it was well worth the wait and the cost! Simply amazing. Allred borrows from such movies as 2001, El Topo, Yojimbo and John Woo flick to make the final result something that simply blows your mind away.

Even though the acting does sometimes seems a bit amateur, it doesn't affect the movies great plot and superb special effects. It's definitely a classic in the wide group of "No-budget" films, which includes such films as El Mariachi, Clerks, Slackers and many more! 10 out of 10!

This film coincides with Mike Allred's comic book mini-series, "Red Rocket Seven" and tells the story of an alien who escaped to Earth to wait for "Astroesque" which ties into the book of Revelations and the apocylpse. This is only part of a bigger story (if the movie confuses you, read "RR7" too). You can easily tell that Allred is used to telling stories with pictures. The direction is very good and the effects aren't bad for a $500 budget. Unfortunately, Mike used many friends to play the roles and probably didn't have the heart to say that they couldn't act. Also, Mike is not showing his writing skills in this movie. His dialouge spoon-feeds the plot to you and doesn't let you enjoy the characters. This was actually disappointing considering his tremendous writing ability shown in his comic books. 4 out of 10.

I tried to like this movie. I really did. But as much as it had a lot of potential, it was ultimately disappointing.

I appreciated the attempt at an image-heavy (as opposed to dialogue-heavy) film, but I just didn't get it. From what I understand from reading other info about it, there's a comic book to go with it. I think this film should have been given more stand-alone value.

The acting was terrible, and the pace was far too slow, even for a film of this nature. I understood a lot of what was going on, but there was too little information about the mysterious character himself, and too much useless flashback of the other guy. How did his sister die? It's obvious she dies, but never clearly explained.

I like indie films, but sometimes making one too ambiguous just completely leaves the audience out of the loop, no matter how beautiful it looks. And it's really hard to enjoy a movie that way.

A very promising and original first feature by comic book writer (Madman/Red Rocket Seven/etc) Mike Allred. If you only like slick, big budget, Holywood flicks you probably won't like this. But if you enjoyed Tetsuo: The Iron Man, watched any Troma movie or set your VCR for Joe Bob's latest pick then this might be up your alley.