Battlespace

Beyond boring. 80% of this movie, shot on dirt cheap miniDV and 'film-looked' in post, shows a lone heroine traversing a desert. THAT'S IT. Scenes that could've been done in 45 seconds, are stretched out to 45 minutes.

The costumes are cheap looking. Acting is non-existent. These were favors (or blackmail) by the cast, and nothing more.

The CGI visual are horrendously bad, even by amateur standards. This smacks more of an 8th grader's attempt at video game cutscenes than a low-budget feature.

This thing is so bad, even the nerd-run series 'Hidden Frontier' looks and plays better.

The look of the movie is horrible. Acting is nil. Visuals are shockingly bad. The only saving grace is the clear audio.

Spare yourself 90 minutes of agony. AVOID.

Most criticisms posted about Battlespace center on poor special effects, low budget,lack of forceful acting, you know, the usual. I don't think great special effects helped AVATAR that much. I don't think the Star Trek movies were well acted, and high budget financing didn't rescue Waterworld. So let's tell you what I liked about Battlespace.

This film has a lot of positives. I viewed the acting as subtle - facial expressions and good camera-work went a long way to create mood and emotion. Effective. 6 out of 10.

Special effects weren't bad at all, but they were of mixed styles so somewhat inconsistent to the viewer. Some of the painted planet sequences were as good as I've ever seen. Best of all, the special effects conveyed understanding - they weren't simply eye candy, but useful for plot delineation. 7.5 out of 10

The story, pacing and characterizations were the weaknesses of Battlespace. Just another story of a vulnerable lady out to save the universe, after being unable to manage her own life and affairs. Our heroine, actress Eve Connelly, who was attractive and had expressive facials, was supposed to be a superhero, a genetically enhanced Valkerie, but she still threw a rock like a 10th grade schoolgirl. She simply didn't have the nastiness and physical presence necessary for her role. That being said, in spite of rather slow pacing, I was always wondering what was going to happen next, and at no time did I wish the main protagonist dead, as I often do in sci-fi or horror film. She worked on a human level, so okay here. For story, characterizations and pacing, a solid 3 of 10.

Best of all, though, was the music. Just excellent. A symphonic score composed and conducted by Aussie superstar Owen Arnold, who is the equal of Brian May and as good as anything Hollywood has to offer. I say this as a professional violinist, composer and conductor myself. This guy is good, and worth watching the movie for. 8.5 out of 10 here, and I simply won't give out 9's or 10's to anything but Le Nozze De Figaro or Parsifal.

Check the flick out. You'll have seen lots worse.

Despite this movie is made by another mockbusting company, compared to many of those abominations is competently made although it has also a confusing plot.

A woman mercenary ends up stranded in an unhospital planet and tries to survive; in the meanwhile she discovers there is a weapon of mass destruction and she has only 48 hours left for avoiding the explosion. Will she succedd? See the movie.

The cinematography at times looks very cheap, and the editing from time to time looks very jumpy and shoddy. The acting is ok at best, with the actress that plays the colonel (Eve Connelly) that at least tries with the material given. And it has also good sets from beginning to end. This is the reason why I score it a 4 despite its flaws. I can't see myself giving a 1 to a movie with ok acting and nice sets. It deserves at least few other points just for these elements.

Not only bad but you can NOT use the name Ussal. There is only 1 person with that name in the cinematic universe and that is Paul Atreides in Dune. Different spelling or not.

I made it through half of this, but was not enough of a masochist to see it all. The first half of the film had next to no dialog ! Almost everything was voice over commentary to carry the story. The scriptwriter forgot that sometimes less is more and tried to explain several millennium of detailed history in the voice over. At the same time he forgot to do any character development. Most science fiction fans don't require huge amounts of character development, but it would be nice to know why the two main characters who survived the destruction of the space fleet together ended up fighting each other.

There are some good things going on in the film. The soundtrack was well done. Some of the computer generated graphics are very good, but others were just mediocre.