movie review: battlespace

Battlespace is a movie done in 2006.
It is a relatively low cost science-fiction movie.
It's about a marine colonel whose battleship gets destroyed. She gets stranded on a inhospitable planet with the enemy hunting her.

The movie is not -that- bad although it has a very low rating in IMDB.

There are several problems with the movie.
Let's start with the first and the most annoying one: Voiceover.
The movie is clearly based on a much larger universe design - there are a number of things which are not extremely clear as you watch it. The voiceover is presented as the daughter of the heroine, explaining things as happen, which is quite annoying... Instead of showing, they are trying to tell. It doesn't work.

The second problem is the editing. There are great scenes and quite a decent CGI (especially when you think about the low-cost feeling of the movie). On the other hand the direction and editing is quite atrocious. It is disjointed and really distracts you from what's going on.

The universe is quite self-contained and works without invoking a deus ex-machina.

Some of the CGI are quite funny like V2 rockets and spaceships designed like WWII submarines or simply like spanners.

There are hallucinations of the "Earth" which s supposed to be destroyed - which is not explained thorogly.

The worst scene is where the heroine straps herself to a V2 rocket. That is just senseless and stupid and without any point!

It's suprising that I managed to watch all of the 1h25 minutes of this movie. I should have stopped watching but by a decent editing, it could have been a way better movie. Even with the reasonably-poor actng, it could have worked.

What is really funny is the amount of (or the lack of) information about this movie on the net.

About an hour into the movie, it just loses the track completely, switches to the end of time, more and more explaining what is going on and a somewhat senseless ending.

There are a couple of very funny moments, one being the muzak playing in the elevator - in a spaceship.... Just shows you that some things never change.

It is fun to see classic Doctor Who-like scenes.
Shots from quarries, mines, factories, all used as a SF-technology background - which is very funny since these places tend to be pretyty much old-tech.

OK... The last thing: This movie is intelligent. It's not really an action-SF movie. It actually tries to make a point,... And fails. Regardless, it's a good attempt.

Anyway... There appears to be a new fad.
Way back the cheap SF movies were shot by a red filter, giving everything the "Mars" feeling.
Most of this movie is shot by a blue filter.
This is not the first time I've seen this. This effect was used in Charlie Jade with a very very good effect. Not here.