I watched this bomb on the Sci-Fi channel, and what we have here is yet another Sci-Fi produced movie made with a $20 budget. Sometime around 2040, a cast of no-talent actors goes to a distant planet. They're hope is to find a new home to save the human race since Earth is too polluted to support life. Instead of a spaceship, they are teleported there with a "super transporter" able to span the stars. When they get there, they find a beautiful forest world that looks like Alaska, or Alberta (since everything is filmed in Canada nowadays) and claim it a paradise ready for the human race to colonize. Suddenly, members of the team start dropping off like flies! Something grabs them and tears them to pieces one by one. This unseen threat soon makes itself shown, and no it's not some CGI alien beast but none other than Grizzly Bears! Mutated Grizzly Bears! Supposedly, they are smart Grizzly Bears and not "mindless killing machines" as Stephen Colbert would say. Anyway, as the number of humans drops to an all time low they suspect one of them has double-crossed the rest. He discovered a well of green slime in a cave that cures all disease and even regenerates lost limbs! The traitor then tries to make it back to Earth to get rich off this stuff, and leave his buddies behind on the "Savage Planet" to become bear food. That in a nutshell is the premise behind this god awful waste of film.
Reviews
4 Reviews
The Wraith
(1986)
This didn't age well
19 September 2005
I loved this movie when I was growing up in the '80s. I had Knight Rider - Road Warrior - and Transformers on the brain back then, so of course a movie about a "ghostly magical car and it's mysterious driver that kills people" was too cool for me to ignore. I think I payed more attention to all the cool car action than the story line when I watched it. I thought this movie was the coolest ever.
Now, 20 years later, I can say this movie didn't "age" very well and I can't believe how stupid it really is, especially the cheesy dialog of Sheriff Loomis (a.k.a Randy Quaid) and bad acting and directing of the rest of it. The only two characters I think are entertaining to watch were Skank and Gutterboy. I laugh aloud whenever I see the wraith costume, which looks like a paint-ball suit with elbow pads and a motorcycle helmet. Not much thought went into that design. I will admit that the special effects used in the movie looked ahead of their time, for a mid-80's movie, and still look pretty cool today - especially when the wraith car repairs itself after a crash.
Anyway, I gave this movie a moderate 5 out of 10 for nostalgia reasons. I did love it as a kid and I know if you asked me in 1986 I would have given it "20 out of 10" if it were possible. Today I see a low-budget sci-fi movie mixed with a 2 hour of "product placement" for Chrysler.
Now, 20 years later, I can say this movie didn't "age" very well and I can't believe how stupid it really is, especially the cheesy dialog of Sheriff Loomis (a.k.a Randy Quaid) and bad acting and directing of the rest of it. The only two characters I think are entertaining to watch were Skank and Gutterboy. I laugh aloud whenever I see the wraith costume, which looks like a paint-ball suit with elbow pads and a motorcycle helmet. Not much thought went into that design. I will admit that the special effects used in the movie looked ahead of their time, for a mid-80's movie, and still look pretty cool today - especially when the wraith car repairs itself after a crash.
Anyway, I gave this movie a moderate 5 out of 10 for nostalgia reasons. I did love it as a kid and I know if you asked me in 1986 I would have given it "20 out of 10" if it were possible. Today I see a low-budget sci-fi movie mixed with a 2 hour of "product placement" for Chrysler.
Eight Legged Freaks
(2002)
Just as dumb as it was supposed to be
20 May 2004
A movie designed to give you the feel of the cheesy drive-in horror films of the 50's, and director Ellory Elkayem pulls it off pretty well, although I probably would have enjoyed it better had they really made it cheesy. They should have spiders that were rubber puppets as fake as you could make them. However, these spiders are created with the latest and greatest in computer animation so their was no low-budget feel here.
For a movie made dumb on purpose, the plot was good enough... A scientist's collection of a bunch of rare and very deadly spiders gets irradiated by green glowing goo that falls off a chemical truck. They mutate and become gigantic monsters that go on a feeding frenzy through town, and it's up to a few courageous townspeople to improvise a plan and take them out. I believe their first victim was the scientist himself, so a nerdy kid obsessed with arachnids has to take charge in the plans to destroy the monsters before they get to the city.
A great film for DVD rental night (i'd never spend money to buy a copy) and I think the kids would really like it. Adults, might snooze, but if your into random scenes of humans being eaten by spiders you'll like it.
For a movie made dumb on purpose, the plot was good enough... A scientist's collection of a bunch of rare and very deadly spiders gets irradiated by green glowing goo that falls off a chemical truck. They mutate and become gigantic monsters that go on a feeding frenzy through town, and it's up to a few courageous townspeople to improvise a plan and take them out. I believe their first victim was the scientist himself, so a nerdy kid obsessed with arachnids has to take charge in the plans to destroy the monsters before they get to the city.
A great film for DVD rental night (i'd never spend money to buy a copy) and I think the kids would really like it. Adults, might snooze, but if your into random scenes of humans being eaten by spiders you'll like it.
Moon 44
(1990)
Bad start for hit directors
16 May 2004
Moon 44 is a bad start for director Roland Emmerich and nobody-actor turned producer Dean Devlin (who later team up with one another to make the blockbusters: Stargate, Independence Day and Godzilla).
The plot of this movie is really weak... It's 2036, and Earth's resources are gone. Mankind is now out in space mining moons somewhere for resources. However, it seems that even the big ol' universe doesn't have enough resources to sustain us greedy, and wasteful humans. The supercorps that run the mining operations have to literally battle each other for the goods.
To defend it's last territory, Moon 44, one company resorts to hire convicts to pilot helicopters (helicopters? on a moon?) yes, helicopters, to protect their mining robots from theft, even though the ships are stolen IN SPACE while their on transit to Earth. Makes a whole lotta sense doesn't it? Since no reputable pilot wants the suicide job of defending the base, the convicts are given the opportunity to do the job for a reduced sentence.
One convict is actually an undercover cop (Michael Paré) and his job is to infiltrate the mining complex and expose a traitor who is reprogramming the robot ships to never make it back to Earth. Because everyone involved is a potential suspect, it makes the cop's job more difficult.
The movie is filled to the brim, with bad acting, lame dialogue, dry characters, cheesy special effects (even for a 1990 film it looked more like something from 1980) and there is even some homoeroticism thrown in for good measure.
Avoid Moon 44 at all cost, and stick to Emmerich's blockbuster hits.
The plot of this movie is really weak... It's 2036, and Earth's resources are gone. Mankind is now out in space mining moons somewhere for resources. However, it seems that even the big ol' universe doesn't have enough resources to sustain us greedy, and wasteful humans. The supercorps that run the mining operations have to literally battle each other for the goods.
To defend it's last territory, Moon 44, one company resorts to hire convicts to pilot helicopters (helicopters? on a moon?) yes, helicopters, to protect their mining robots from theft, even though the ships are stolen IN SPACE while their on transit to Earth. Makes a whole lotta sense doesn't it? Since no reputable pilot wants the suicide job of defending the base, the convicts are given the opportunity to do the job for a reduced sentence.
One convict is actually an undercover cop (Michael Paré) and his job is to infiltrate the mining complex and expose a traitor who is reprogramming the robot ships to never make it back to Earth. Because everyone involved is a potential suspect, it makes the cop's job more difficult.
The movie is filled to the brim, with bad acting, lame dialogue, dry characters, cheesy special effects (even for a 1990 film it looked more like something from 1980) and there is even some homoeroticism thrown in for good measure.
Avoid Moon 44 at all cost, and stick to Emmerich's blockbuster hits.
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