It's mostly badly acted. The special effects are mostly awful. The dialogue is week. It needs an edit.
But it's not all bad.
The viewpoint character is an android, played adequately by Robin Kurtz. I have no idea whether she's a particularly good actor, because this role was supposed to be stiff and robotic. But she does it perfectly well.
The dialogue and acting of most of the other characters is not good, not good at all. Cringeworthy, in places. Just ignore it and power through.
The special effects aren't all terrible. Hah, I say that, but they are, really. It's just that sometimes they lift themselves to SyFy bargain- basement level and they seem good by comparison. The exterior shots are OK, but the film is let down by the painted nerf-gun level weapons, reactionless pew-pew effect and bizarre 90s-video-game standard mechanical bad guys.
What I appreciated about the movie, on the other hand:
The viewpoint character. She's mechanical and has no memory of why she was brought online. She doesn't even know which side of the war she's supposed to be fighting on. She doesn't have a burning desire to find out, either; she just plods on - spending 20 minutes finding some pants - in a way that seems strangely believable. Her brief interactions with other people on the station work quite well.
The plot contains elements of many other films - but what doesn't? There's a time loop, zombies (I have no clue who thought that was a good idea), a prophesy and space marines. It's all been done. It's like the anti-terminator. If you ignore the zombies and dog-bot-things it comes together as something pretty original.
The camera-work isn't at all bad either. Neither is the soundtrack (with the exception of the pop-pop guns).
I've certainly seen much worse.
In summary, the camera-work, sound, direction and acting lead all show promise.
But it's not all bad.
The viewpoint character is an android, played adequately by Robin Kurtz. I have no idea whether she's a particularly good actor, because this role was supposed to be stiff and robotic. But she does it perfectly well.
The dialogue and acting of most of the other characters is not good, not good at all. Cringeworthy, in places. Just ignore it and power through.
The special effects aren't all terrible. Hah, I say that, but they are, really. It's just that sometimes they lift themselves to SyFy bargain- basement level and they seem good by comparison. The exterior shots are OK, but the film is let down by the painted nerf-gun level weapons, reactionless pew-pew effect and bizarre 90s-video-game standard mechanical bad guys.
What I appreciated about the movie, on the other hand:
The viewpoint character. She's mechanical and has no memory of why she was brought online. She doesn't even know which side of the war she's supposed to be fighting on. She doesn't have a burning desire to find out, either; she just plods on - spending 20 minutes finding some pants - in a way that seems strangely believable. Her brief interactions with other people on the station work quite well.
The plot contains elements of many other films - but what doesn't? There's a time loop, zombies (I have no clue who thought that was a good idea), a prophesy and space marines. It's all been done. It's like the anti-terminator. If you ignore the zombies and dog-bot-things it comes together as something pretty original.
The camera-work isn't at all bad either. Neither is the soundtrack (with the exception of the pop-pop guns).
I've certainly seen much worse.
In summary, the camera-work, sound, direction and acting lead all show promise.