A Seriously Crappy Sci-Fi Weekend

THEY SAY the first step is acknowledging that one has a problem so here goes… I’m addicted to sci-fi, and the worse the better. Think of it like a B movie addiction, the type of guity pleasure you wouldn’t even admit to your wife, and this weekend I couldn’t resist the lure of killer bugs, rampaging mutants and lethal viruses in a marathon of futuristic fun… all due to the wonders of Rapidshare and direct downloading.

It’s not something I would have bothered with in the past because of the bandwidth demands, but this new shiny 20mb changes everything and I have to say the combination of rapidfind.org with rapidshare is a potent mix. for my viewing pleasure this weekend I decided to case a glance at Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, Doomsday and The Mutant Chronicles, a worthy selection of sci-fi crappiness I think you will agree.

I started off watching what I thought would be the worst of the bunch, and I wasn’t dissappointed

Doomsday is pretty much a series of stolen cliche moments from all of your favourite sci-fi flicks of the last 20 years, from a director who should know better, staring actors who really should have known better and missing a plot because, well the plot knew better and buggered off. It’s completely nonsensical from start to finish.

I’m trying to sum up one single thing the film did right, but to be honest the only thing that I found memorable at all was the use of a foam grenade, yes you read that right, in a falling elevator scenarion. Picture the scene… elevator full of suited and booted soldiers, cable snaps and the carriage falls many stories downward only somewhere during the descent one of the good guys lets off a foam grenade which basically blankets the entire cage and protects them from the fall.

I did say it made no sense didn’t I?

Anyway, moving on from one cliche to another, I decided to give Starship Troopers 3: Maurader a try out and I was actually surprised. It was not completely without merit, but still a shite movie overall. The first 10 or 15 minutes are very similar to the original of the species and carry just as much tongue in cheek facism and racism elements, but gradually it goes down the religious route and starts to completely loose cohesion.

One of the most underused elements of the entire film are actually the ‘maurader’ suits mentioned in the title. Fans of the original book and/or animated series will know all about these cool outfits and the experience of dropping from space into orbit in one… but the whole exposure to same in this movie was about 10 minutes in total. If you like your sci-fi fast, facist and fucking ridiculous then this one is a must!

I followed that up with a complete shot in the dark (sorry, bad pun) and gave The Mutant Chronicles a lash. I didn’t know anything about the story or plot before trying it out so I had nothing to go on by way of comparison, but it was one of those blue screen jobbies, a kind of cross between steam punk and world war 1 concerning the last attempt of the human race to save itself from a ‘machine’ which was turning the entire population into mutants.

I gotta tell you this one made fuck all sense from start to finish and I was surprised to see some of the actors show up in this like Ron Pearlman (Hellboy) and Devon Aoki, hell even Sean Pertwee put in a forgettable perfornance but the one which surprised me the most was seeing Thomas Jane in the mix. Anyhoo all I can say is… don’t bother unless you’re a devoted fan of the original (which I assume is a graphic novel of some sort) and want to draw comparisons.

Hmm… maybe next weekend I’ll pick a different theme and see what I can snag with my new wormhole download speeds

 

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