movie coverI'd rather be watching TV![IMDB link] [Netflix link] “It destroyed his world. He won’t let it destroy ours.”

NOT-THAT-UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Destroyer of endangered species brings monster to an unsuspecting violent people; becomes king.

PEOPLE: Directed/written by Howard McCain, co-written by Dirk Blackman — both also wrote Underworld:Rise Of The Lycans. Starring James Caviezel (Passion Of The Christ, The Count Of Monte Cristo), Sophia Myles (Underworld, From Hell), and Jack Huston (Twilight 3, Shrooms). With John Hurt (Hellboy 2, V For Vendetta, Dead Man, The Black Cauldron, and Winston Smith in the 1984 version of George Orwell‘s Nineteen Eighty-Four), Cliff Saunders (another Boromir?!), Ron Perlman (Hellboy!).

QUIRKS: Basically a fantasy action movie with a tiny sci-fi twist: the monsters are aliens.

VISUALS: Vikings, plus a bad-ass glowing space monster. Decent.

MORALS: Maybe you shouldn’t kill endangered species just to take their land…

POLITICS: Better to be a king… than not. :)

BAD STUFF: For a sci-fi meets fantasy movie, they didn’t really have much sci-fi tech or anything. In a sense, this means the premise was wasted.

It was at times hard to keep track of how many monsters there were… but isn’t that part of the fun?

There are some perceived plot holes, but some of them are actually answered in the deleted scenes — bad call to cut those. For example, [highlight for spoilers]→ there are deleted scenes where he goes back and checks on his distress beacon, only to find out the rescue ship hasn’t arrived yet — which explains the “hole” of why the rescue ship didn’t show up until the end of the movie. Also, when he holds his breath for an unrealistic period of time, it is because there are deleted scenes where he drops down bags of oxygen to replenish his supply while he is underwater. Apparently there are 27 deleted scenes(!).

Whatever foley artist created the fire/torch sound effects needs to be fired. Real fire is not so trebly (too much treble!) that you feel like your speakers are clipping the waveform!

Also, the plot is pretty cliche. Those who like to try to ruin their movie experiences will probably try to guess what will happen — as this person did (spoilers!) — and very well may be right.

Finally: Ron Perlman fans will be disappointed that he’s barely in this movie. “Why did he choose to take this role?”, people keep asking. Maybe he’s not hoisted up on his ego, and is quite willing to play small parts. He was still pretty badass, crushing skulls with his hammer.

CONCLUSION: Despite its flaws and generic-ness, I still really enjoyed this.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.4/5 stars (3.5/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 6.4/10.

RECOMMENDATION: If you like mindless action movies, here’s another! And it’s not completely mindless, either. There’s some moral relevance here. The good guys are also the bad guys, in a sense.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Similar to Beowulf in ways, but with a sci-fi twist.

At least one person calls this Planet of the Apes meets Beowulf, Braveheart, Predator, Mad Max 2, LOTR. Many call this a rip-off of The 13th Warrior — but we never saw that.

Haha, someone made a song based on the first battle in the movie:

Mood: ready to hang out
Music: Pixies – Nimrod’s Son