Machine Wars

amazing film

beta of move

I bought this movie at Walmart. I don't remember how much I paid for it but it was more than $5 and too much in my opinion. The story could have been great. I love robot movies and apocalyptic movies. The cover looks good, the description on the back looked good. But the movie was not. If it was about half the as long maybe it would have been better. Actor did OK given what he had to work with. But I felt like I was watching a silent movie with mood music playing in the background for 70% of the movie. Loads of things wrong with this movie that prevent it from being what it could have been. If you have an hour plus to waist and can watch this movie for free! This is a good way to waist it. If you can't fall asleep and are browsing through the free movies and this movie pops up. Put it on, YOU WILL FALL ASLEEP!

Captain (Ian Rowe) is going to a Goldilocks planet 20 light years away which he called 581, most likely the one that circles around the star Gliese 581. A transporter was first sent there as this is going to be some type of wormhole thing. Captain gets there, but his ship crashes into a planet that looks like an area outside of Devon, England. Now Gliese is a red dwarf and its Goldilocks planet in question always faces the sun creating a habitable band in a twilight zone. That was not this planet. The early stages of the film looked promising with a padded room spaceship and neat looking screen effects...then he landed as we watched one guy stroll through the woods with a mechanical dog. PLOT SPOILER: Captain encounters a drone battle going on with no life forms. It isn't hard to figure out what happened, even before he picks up an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Yes there is even a slight twist on top of what is Captain Obvious. I liked the film better when it had simians in it. Guide: 1 F-word. No sex or nudity. Being re-titled: "Reconnoiter" I am not sure how that DVD cover fits into the film.

Didn't expect a lot from this movie and it delivered. The astronaut is well trained in napping. It's his go to move when trouble abounds. The title should be "guy travels 20 light years to nap on alien planet". I think there was a message about mankind destroying themselves. But what I got from it was how not to edit a movie. There are numerous black screen cuts (usually after one of the aforementioned naps) that destroy any continuity that the film may have had. Also, for no reason at all, there's several baby sequences. Has nothing to do with the plot. Just a, hey we saw 2001 space odyssey! Now watch this guy take another nap. He does make friends with a robot dog that has a luggage rack that takes him a while to figure out. The aliens also can figure out how to make autonomous robots but are still working with reel film. Not even VHS. But, on a positive note, their film can survive the gamma ray burst of a nuclear attack. So that's pretty sweet. I went with 3 stars because it was a good laugh and left me confused. It was the only movie I've watched where I hoped the lead would commit suicide so it would end.

SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT! A well-meaning but VERY slow paced piece of SF which falls to bits about the half way mark by not playing fair: Half way through the movie the downed astronaut discovers a container "covered in alien writing" - it's a Jack Daniels bottle! DAH DAH DAH!!!!! The alien planet was Earth all along! (as if we hadn't seen that coming). The old 'it was earth all along' gag not in itself a show-stopper, a lot of films, books, comics have used that trick over the years and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. What makes it not work here and makes the watcher (well me at least) give up on the movie is the fact that in the opening sequence of the film the astronaut is surrounded by screens full of warnings and alerts - all in English. Come on! And it's not as if the film makers gave us a lot to distract us from joining those two dots either so it really sticks out. Having said that I did watch it to the end. Some of the SFX were pretty good for the budget but there just wasn't enough material here for a feature. Even a (very long) 67 minute one. This was a 20 minute short stretched way beyond any credible limit.

Forget about the promising cover, this movie is only interesting for 2 minutes, where they explain what they did with machine 1 and 2. A very rough animation. No explanation, how this may work, just that they did it. The rest is just like the original planet of apes without apes and anything else. This whole story could be told in 2 minutes. The machines, fighting each other is absolutely useless, as nearly everything else in this movie. An absolutely waste of time! And the flaws are worse too... How can they transport machine 2 for 60 years and as it finally works, it's a time-machine, that's still in the earth-orbit? Imho the whole story is bullshit. But maybe i missed the point...

Robot world, more like a handful of robots in England!!! Very slow like all have said before. Capt James somehow passed the astronaut selection board, how was this possible? Carrying that damn grip/holdall made him look like he was going for a dirty weekend! I recognised at once that he was back in old blighty(Dartmoor/Exmoor and the river Severn bridge)did he ever do any survival training!! Very poor effort, at least he doesn't play Frech with the robot dog!

As an actor, in mostly indie movies myself, I can appreciate this. Making movies isn't easy. Let alone completing one. I actually really enjoyed this. Early on it had almost a 2001 A Space Odyssey feel to it. The robots were great. The directing was good, good acting (tho not much dialogue). And they had a nice camera. It looked good. I found it interesting almost everyone in the credits were "Rowe". I have to say tho, I did not like the ending.

A lot of people seem to trash this movie. Well let me just say they have no idea how to rate a film. Considering this is a very low budget film it was very well done. Yes there's a lack of dialogue. Duh that's how it was designed. The cinematography was outstanding. Effects were well done to the budget. Acting was good. Remember that Tom hanks did a film with little dialog and it was a Oscar nominated film. The story and show running, imo, were excellent. Only one thing could make this better. Remake with someone like Ridley Scott behind it. With a large budget and some add ons to the script this could be a award winning movie. Great job. Make More Movies