Battlefield Moon

The guy that directed Battlefield Earth directed this. I'm sure for some that's review enough of any movie.

"Stranded" (2013)
directed by Roger Christian
written by Roger Christian and Christian Piers Bentley
starring Christian Slater, Amy Matysio, Michael Therriault, and Brendan Fehr

How Is It?
It's almost as if they kidnapped a Roger Corman sci fi movie from the early '80s but made it worse. No, really. It's derivative in every possible way, but what sets it apart from most of those films it attempted to parrot, it has no soul of its own. It's a hollow, drab, gray, uninteresting movie. (It's still not as bad as this one, though.)

The Players
This is the depressing part: The ensemble of four good actors got stuck with a bad script and a director with a very checkered track record. Nobody was written a character to play. The movie is about four cardboard cutouts stuck in a crippled mining base on the moon. Slater plays the typical base commander. Therriault plays the typical engineer with a drinking problem. Therriault plays the typical level-headed, logical medical officer. Matysio gets the most to draw from out of the gang. She gets to play both the brave, capable first officer as well as the damsel in distress. It's just that the writing is so bad, so flat that all of their characters have only as much dimension as the descriptions of them you just read.

Behind The Camera
Roger Christian is am industry recognized, award-winning set decorator and production designer. He directed the cult horror classic "The Sender" (1982) as well as the universally decried and derided "Battlefield Earth" (2000). So the sets in this movie looks good, as does the lighting. The moonbase exteriors and other miniatures work are quite good. For the just over $2 million the film was made for, it looks pretty good. Looks. The look of the movie is where all the money wound up. Not enough of it made it into script rewrites, which is as much of a shame as it is becoming more common in movies. The look of a movie is its frame, and the script is the picture, the colors, textures, brushstrokes, and theme. "Stranded" is a frame without anything inside.

The Verdict
It would have been a different movie, could have been a different movie, a good movie, if only the script wasn't so derivative, joyless, and boring and there was anything there to watch. Avoid.

Three to start again...

"Frankenstein's Army" (2013)

World War 2 rages on, with the Communists storming through Eastern Germany, and while answering an advance unit's request reinforcement one Soviet unit finds far more than they ever bargained for, a secret Nazi lab in full swing making new kinds of super soldiers. The film's well made and fairly entertaining but does sag a bit in the middle, taking some too long playing one note before gearing up again for the run to the end. All in all, it really is a cut above average, even if just. Rentable.

"The Moleman of Belmont Avenue" (2010)

Two rather bumbling brothers have run their inherited brownstone apartment building into the ground, and adding to their woes, something's trying to eat every living thing in the place, starting with the tenants' pets. It lives in the basement, and it's up to the boys to stop the menace. It's not exactly a grabbing premise, and unfortunately the film keeps in line such. It's not a bad film. It's certainly not a good one, though Robert Englund stands out as Confab, a mildly creepy and at the same time cool older ladies man. The problem with the film is that only Englund seems to fire on all cylinders. Besides his performance and a few moments here and there, the film's really not that fun. Not recommended.

"Manborg" (2011)

I will only say that the poster says it all and that this film was made for $1,000 (Canadian). Beyond that, it's the best film on today's list and better than several I have reviewed on this blog. Watching it, it's the 1980s all over again. It's a marvelous pastiche. The nearly nonexistent budget is obvious in every frame, as is the ludicrous amount of fun, work, and love that went into it. "Manborg" is nothing but laugh-out-loud fun all the way through. It's definitely worth renting and/or buying.