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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful: SciFi MishMash, 6 May 2006 Author: tom-darwin from United States
With the notable exception of the excellent "Dark Kingdom," the SciFi Channel seems to have an aversion to original productions that don't insult its audience's intelligence. Self-aware combat robots decide to go into business for themselves after crashing on a tropical island that looks amazingly like Santa Barbara County. A commando team is sent in with the brainiac daughter of the scientist who created the critters, charged not with destroying but recapturing them. Complicating matters is a trio of cruise-ship robbers whose getaway helicopter happened to crash on the same island for the same reason (a sudden, unexpectedly huge tropical storm that the gods tossed in to add to the tension because it would be too much work to create it through the story). The machines resemble H.G. Wells's original fighting machines, with the embittered sociopathy of "The Terminator's" SkyNet & the opportunistic assimilation abilities shown in "South Park's" episode "Trapper Keeper." Bits & pieces of story elements that could be attributed to "Resident Evil," "Westworld" & any number of trapped-on-an-island-with-monsters movies serve to finish off any hint of originality. The CGI critter-machines are up to par, although they make annoying creaking noises like the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz." The other sets & props range from so-so to laughably cheap. The commandos are ludicrously incompetent, having received their patrolling, combat & weapons training from third-graders in some backyard. "Star Trek" icons George Takei (ex-Sulu) & Michael Dorn (ex-Worf) might have lent some interest but share no scenes together & have small, dispensable parts. "AI" violates one of the most basic rules in monster movies by both showing & describing the monster in the very first scene, leaving nothing more for imagination or anticipation. The same carelessness with the sets is given to the explanation of the monsters & the rationale for their misbehavior, although the word "matrix" is applied to them at least 3 times. Why does SciFi keep doing this to us? Is it because Michael Bay keeps getting away with making giant movies without plausible stories? Are we being collectively punished for our morbid fascination with Edward D. Wood, Jr.? Is there some secret proviso in Hollywood that prohibits the possession of a valid library card? I'd rather sit through a miniseries of all 39 sequels to "The Wizard of Oz" than see more of these. Uh-oh, better be careful what I wish for.
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Decent, 9 July 2006 Author: DisgorgedMenstrualSludge from Hell
A plane carrying several secret military robots crashes on an island somewhere in the Pacific. The robots were designed as weapons for the Gulf War and are extremely deadly. A military team is sent to the island to gather the robots by scrambling their systems with a laser gun. (not an easy task), while a gang of thieves who landed their helicopter there after a heist try to survive. This is a decent Sci Fi Channel movie that was entertaining but was not anything we haven't seen many other times on this channel. The CGI effects weren't good, but weren't terrible either. I've definitely seen suckier movies on Sci Fi in the past.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Flawed, Full of Holes, but I Have Seen Worse, 30 January 2008 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
While transporting airborne two state-of-art robots with artificial intelligence and a team of scientists, the ultimate weapons are accidentally activated, killing the humans and crashing the airplane in an isolated island. A team of marines leaded by Major Richard Tunney (Joe Lando) and with the support of the scientist Susan Foster (Lisa LoCicero) is assigned to retrieve or destroy the robots within a schedule. Meanwhile, a gang of thieves that had robbed US$ 2,000,000.00 in a passenger vessel has trouble with the rotor of their helicopter and lands in the same island."A.I. Assault" is flawed and full of holes, and my only consolation is that I have seen movies worse than this one. The story is absurd: the helicopter of the thugs lands exactly in the same dangerous island; the military force brings inadequate weapons, in spite of knowing that only one rifle is suitable to fight against the invincible robots; their adviser, Dr. Susan Foster, acts like a retarded; the pilot of the helicopter has a crisis of morality and leaves two million dollars in the island. The robots seem to be prepared to destroy ham actors and actresses, actually that is what they do along the movie, therefore they are useful weapons. The story is a sort of "Jurassic Park III" with the devices from the 2006 "War of the Worlds", and the special effects are reasonable for a B-movie. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "Shockwave"
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: lots of cast, low technical quality, 13 November 2006 Author: wrlang from United States
Shockwave looked like a real dog and it was except for the cameos by all the different scifi and horror flick cast. A member from every Star Trek franchise was there, Billy Mummy from Lost in Space, and a host of others. The endless supply of bullets with no clip changes. I have to say that I believe the acting was good, but the script and direction seemed off. The story is old and tired. An experiment gone wrong that creates a being that tries to take over the world, or at least got off a deserted island. The editing didn't help much and made the film seem labored. The final battle in the rain and the stars stayed dry the whole time. A B- movie due to all the technical flaws. If you like plain old action and don't mind the continuity breaks, this is for you.
7 out of 10 people found the following review useful: real horror films aren't sponsored by Realtors, 26 August 2006 Author: gothicgoblin1334 from Paris, France
Another made-for-Tele movie which is completely horrible. There is barely any plot, the acting, writing, and of course the god-awful directing of today's worst director and Ed Wood impersonator, Jim Wynorski, who, when not making terrible plot less porn movies with hideous women, is making crappy straight to video or Sci-fi "original" movies. Basically this is a bad rip-off of War of the worlds, and to top it all off, it's another failed attempt of a Sci-fi original movie. If Sci-fi continually pulls bad ideas out of their ass with overtones of someone Else's' films, then the horror business if being dug to an early grave. Which is sad because I am a horror filmmaker myself of what one may call 'b-flicks' but when I see these computer-generated bloody bull-crap, it makes me want to throw up. If this movie comes on the Tele again, kill yourself, it will make you hate your remaining life.
5 out of 7 people found the following review useful: We need to broaden our definition of plagiarism!, 6 May 2006 Author: madmad39 (madmad39@aol.com) from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Does ANYbody care that this is a re-hash of the director's 2004 movie "Curse of the Komodo"?! Just watch the two robbery scenes near the beginning of each movie. That's when I immediately realized I'd seen this one before, except instead of killer A.I. robots his last island was infested with giant komodo dragons. He's reused scenes, dialogue, characters, plot. Basically recycled the whole script just changing out the "monstors". Come on, dude. At least shift things around a little so it might trick someone into thinking it's an "original" SciFi movie. This is truly pathetic! If you can't do better than this, you need to retire. Movies like this betray a complete lack of respect for the genre. Bad enough,but worse when it's a movie on the SciFi channel!
6 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Incredibly pathetic., 10 December 2006 Author: Mr_Jackhammer from USA
I've never reviewed a movie before without watching the whole thing. This is a special case. I began watching the movie. 3 minute later, crappiness reached critical mass. People screaming at badly animated CGI robots. Pistols with endless clips that magically fire without recoil (In fact, upon looking closer, I realized that the pistols are more magical than I realized at first. They somehow fire without the hammer even moving!) Right about the time the guy in camouflage parked his truck underneath the robot and waited for it to laser him is where I quit watching and started doing my math homework. Did they even try with this movie? Jeez. I feel insulted. Thank God I only wasted $2 renting it. Easiest review I've ever made.CCCCCCRRRRAAAAAPPPPP! I've seen better homemade movies on YouTube.
6 out of 9 people found the following review useful: They could do better on this!, 6 May 2006 Author: jlnic from United States
Well, I can tell is a Sci Fi channel assault on our intelligence. They have some Star Trek actors and actor from B5 on the movie, Everyone needs to work even stars from long faded shows. The computer generated robots were decent and the storyline had promise. My problem with this film is as follows: (1) I just love movie military personal with hair too long. (2) This movie supposedly take place on an island near Fiji, why is everyone wearing a jacket. We have a few shot of the tropics, but the rest of the movie seems to be filmed in the Pacific Northwest. It would be an otherwise decent film if they spent a bit of time on the details.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Good actors, bad directing, writing and SPX, 13 July 2008 Author: klchu from California
Wow. Some of my favorite actors are completely wasted in this movie. They try, some more than others, but they can't save this clunker of a script in the hands of an incompetent director. Oh look, the writer and director are the same person: Jim Wynorski.You can tell that this movie had a reasonable budget, but Jim Wynorski doesn't know what to do with it. All of his shots are uninspired and clunky. Likewise, the editing is amateurish. A first year film student could do better.The CGI effects are clean, but they are not integrated well into the live action scenes. Human actors react to things that don't happen, or are out of sync with the CGI action. For example, while being attacked, someone is thrown to the ground by a CGI robot that never gets anywhere close to the actor.Additionally, the music is really lame. Casio keyboard quality from someone's basement.But the worst element is the script. Everything about it is terrible. The story, the lines and the characters are all pathetic.The only things keeping the movie from being a 1 rating are the actors and the rest of the production staff. The camera work is good, as are the costumes, sets, sound, etc. i.e. it's a well-made crappy movie.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Oh come on Wynorski, you're plagiarizing yourself, 7 May 2006 Author: Jack from Minnesota, USA
Well, it's a new experience to watch a movie for the first time and be able to recite the dialogue before the actors say their lines. This movie shares the exact same plot, and about 10 pages of the script, with the movie Curse of the Komodo. The trouble is, Curse is one of the better B-movies I've seen, with excellent characters, a fun story, nice locations, and big breasted babes galore. This movie may or may not be good on its own, I don't know; I spent the whole time noticing how unfavorably it compared to it's predecessor. It didn't help that one of the leads in Curse had a small part in this movie, and he served as a constant reminder of how much personality those characters had, and how little everyone has in this film. It really kept me from enjoying this film. The story is fairly interesting overall. A group of H.G. Wells type tripods (or quadrupods in this case) are stomping around on an island, terrorizing the survivors of a plane crash and the military guys sent in to rescue them. The A.I. critters are done fairly well considering they're obvious CGI. I thought they added a nice '50 charm to the movie. Same with the cheesy '80s theme music, it reminded me a bit of Chopping Mall. Wynorski is a master of getting the most out of what he's got, and his cutting back and forth to the military commanders in Pearl Harbor keeps things moving every time the action starts to get a bit slow. The movie is chock full of the usual B-movie silliness - people firing 150 shots from a pistol without reloading, military guys standing right in front of the killer A.I. critters and firing another 150 shots without reloading, while the A.I. things can't seem to hit them with its lasers, but it can hit somebody else 100 yards away. Or the A.I. robot chasing a pickup, getting to within about 20 feet of it, but then the pickup pulls over to let the passengers off and the A.I. is nowhere to be seen. That stuff doesn't bother me, it's all B-movie goodness. I was just impressed to see that the F-16's DIDN'T change into F-14's in every other shot like they did in Curse of the Komodo. The main problem for me was the characters - they're just not very interesting. None of them distinguish themselves as anything more than the standard clichés. Maybe that was just because I was making the inevitable comparison to the really excellent characters in the previous movie; I don't know. The big climax at the end at least had a bit of originality to it, it wasn't just the usual large explosion that every Sci-Fi Channel original movie ends with.Overall, for a Sci-Fi Channel original, it wasn't too bad. I'd say it rates in the top 20 or 30 percent of their output. It needed more boobs though.
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