Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine

Casper Van Dien and Cynthia Rothrock used to be people... and now they are reduced to this kind of barely student film fluff. The Special effects look like something a Nerd would produce to get his work rejected by the Asylum. The acting is sub-standard. The only thing to speak for it is that the creature effects are kind of good.

The movie had a very dense plot for a movie that was hard to follow, but it involves a bad guy who wants to conquer the galaxy. Most of the film is the actors walking around a forest pretending it's an alien planet. The sets are cheap as well.

Badly directed, badly cast. Well lit and nicely shot, but it's DOA. The less said about the writing, the better. I like science fiction, and can overlook a lot, but this movie is a disaster.

I guess everyone who took a quick look at the cast was wondering: "Wow, really, THAT Casper Van Dien? The guy from Starship Troopers and Sleepy Hollow?" And yes, this is the only reason why I sat down at a friend of mine who collects trash movies. And it didn't take long and I got this weird "Command & Conquer 1 Cinematic" feeling. It's been 20 years ago that Titanic actually looked kind of realistic and Starship Troopers set the benchmark for action packed CGI. And here we are in the year 2017 and are being served with visuals that could have been done by a group of self taught high-schoolers. But that's only the first thing you notice - after this is goes on and on. This story. Sorry, I am usually a guy who tries to value even smallest mercies but no, no mercy here. This story is recycled, rehashed and wrecked - you are pulling your hair out because you just know everything ahead.

The camera, the sound effects, the dialogues, the music, the costumes, the locations (this was probably shot in a forest nearby), the whole way people encounter and talk to each other, it's all so unbelievably lame - i wonder what some of the actors thought when they read the script. In fact a few actors try so hard to make this work you can immediately tell the quality of someones talent. Even with bad camera, clumsy dialogue and cheesy costumes some prove that even in worst conditions they can at least deliver a believable performance - and that goes to some actors, and the actors only.

When you see some student movies coming out of some film or media universities you'd be surprised what the next generation has to offer. Even they would laugh about this embarrassing excuse for a movie. I'm so sorry, I just couldn't be nice this time. This is an insult to movie lovers - and yes, I'm also the kind of guy who also "gets" and laughs about Kung Pow - Enter The Fist.

I have to give this movie one star, even though some of the acting and effects aren't terrible. It's just that I don't understand why anyone would make a film that looks like another Star Wars rip off from the 1980s in 2017. There's absolutely nothing original in the plot, the sets, the make up, the acting, the dialogue, etc. Etc. Etc. We've all seen it dozens if not hundreds of times since 1977. There's nothing here for anyone as far as I could see. The only reason I watched it was it was being treated by RiffTrax.

Think of Battlestar Galactica/Buck Rogers in the 25th Century melded with the 1930s Flash Gordon featurettes. That gives you the type of campy, laughable plots, special effects, makeup, and acting in this film.

The props are the equivalent of low budget 1950s sci-fi films. Facial prosthetics equal the quality from lower budget 1960s productions. Augment that with rudimentary CGI. As to acting, anticipate an overall C- grade. Casper Van Dien delivers as usual an engaging character performance, give him a B. Acting in other roles such as the Princess and the female guardian sent in search of her are of a similar level. The other roles spiral downward from there with C grade acting down to failing E - that goes to the man portraying the prince. His overacting and overly exaggerated facial expressions are over the top bad.

So, don't expect much. There is no edge of your seat suspense, no "OMG that's impressive" moment. Think of it as a Saturday afternoon kids film diversion.