I watched a couple of Science Fiction movies from YouTube today. I was going to dig through the films that I have on DVD and see what I haven't blogged about before but this seemed easier. That was the original plan for Science Fiction Sunday, a chance to revisit some of the films that haven't been watched in a while. That changed over time and finally it was Doctor Who all the way down.
At least, I told myself, checking out some films on YouTube would be a way of seeing something new. Turns out not to be the case. I streamed the films from YouTube through VLC player to avoid the commercial breaks on one of them. I can do some easy screen caps when I want to and the streaming content can be played at 1.5 speed when things get dull. Sometimes wasting real time on a film isn't much of a good investment of that time.
Hunter Prey is a 2010 indy SF action film directed by Sandy Collora who co-wrote the script by Nick Damon. Collora plays the part of the bounty hunter that shows up part way through the movie. I hadn't heard of Damion Poitier who plays Centauri 7 or Clark Bartram who plays Orin Jericho but I had heard of Erin Gray who plays the computer that communicates to Centauri 7. She was Wilma Deering on the Buck Rogers In The 25th Century TV series.
It's all shot in the Baja desert on the RED Camera. It's a great looking place and that camera is a really great camera so they get some interesting images. The CGI that goes on top of those images is mostly pretty good. The copy of the movie on YouTube looks nice, these screen captures are from it, and I can only think the DVD would be better though I doubt if I will find out.
Centauri 7 is part of a group of Sedonians that are searching for an escaped prisoner on a desert planet. Their chip has crashed and their orders are to find the prisoner alive. The military are sending an extraction ship for them. The prisoner turns out to be the last human, Earth was destroyed by the Sedonians, and he wants some revenge. He's got the coordinates of a cloaked ship that is heading for Sedonia. It has enough exploding stuff to wipe out the planet. The Sedonians want to get that info from him so stop the ship.
It's a cat & mouse game while Orin leads the Sedonians across the desert planet. He picks them off one by one and finally it's only him and Centauri 7. That bounty hunter, played by the director, shows up, captures Orin for a bit, then gets shot dead by Centauri 7. The two duke it out one way or another until all the story is revealed. It was interesting enough to watch and it's well enough made. You can find out on YouTube by clicking on the link in the title. The ending is a bit ambiguous but there you go. It's not something I'm going to be thinking much about once I put down this last period.
Cyberjack is a 1995 film directed by Robert Lee. I hadn't heard of him, mostly he's an assistant director, and I have seen hardly any of the stuff he's worked on. Eric Poppen is the writer and I hadn't seen any of his other work. Michael Dudikoff is a cop who's chasing after a criminal named Nassim. The villain is played by a fan favorite, the late Brion James, and he gets the drop on Michael's partner. Even though he has a clear shot to Brion's head he didn't shoot and his partner dies. Brion shoots him and leaves him for dead. Years pass and the cop is a janitor at a company that's developing a magical computer virus.
Nassim and his gang come to steal the virus. The scientist, Doctor Royce, who developed the virus and his daughter Alex are at odds. She works in the same lab and she's the love interest for Michael. He meets her just before the baddies come calling. The head of the company wants to sell the virus to a client but it has some issues. It can get out of control and kill everyone. No matter says Daddy, I'll be famous if it works. Sadly, he'll only be famous as one of Nassim's various victims. He's a pretty brutal villain and his gang is made up of psychos the likes of which you've seen better portrayed in other movies.
Once you strip away the vague futuristic clap trap the movie is a Die Hard clone with little much of anything going for it, except for Brion James. While he's a great villain most of the time, here he's about average. Mind you he's still entertaining but I can't say as much for the movie. It's pretty much below average and there's nothing much to recommend. It does gets pretty silly at the end but there's nothing amazing about it. You can see it on YouTube in the link above and waste some of your time or be sensible and give it a miss.
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