Search - War of the Planets on DVD

Chris W. (kungfudalek)
Reviewed on 9/9/2012...

Not that bad of a movie! I love these type of cheesy movies, and cheesy is what this is. Check it out if you like cheesy!

2 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Little known facts

Stogie | Somewhere in Tennessee | 12/12/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"First let me say that, yes this is a crappy movie, but you might like to know the story behind the movie. I am the brother on one of the on screen cast so I know of what I speak (and no I will not reveal who that person is under penalty of death....mine). This movie was produced in Mike Conway's back yard in Las Vegas, NV. The total cost before Lion's Gate got it was $24,000 (which was financed on credit cards beleive it or not). He cobbled the set from used video game machines, plywood and assorted spare parts he found around. There were no "special effects" with that kind of budget so when Mike got contacted by some special effects guys who had connections with Lion's Gate they edited it down (hence the confusion with the dying daughter) and added the graphic effects (long shots of the planets, the exterior of the ship and other digital effects). With little money to work with Mike used extended monologes to tell the story (the choice of the Doctor who has an accent so thick you can't understand what he's saying was due to the pay he was providing.........nothing!). With so little to work with and with the set limitations it's surprising he was even able to produce anything at all. Yop have to give Mike some credit for having the guts to attempt making a movie for what a major studio spends on lunch on any given Tom Cruise flick. As I said before this is one bad movie but if you watch it and realize what was produced for $24,000 you are getting a lot more then it appears."

Houston, we have a problem...

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 07/25/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Seems War of the Planets (2003) was originally titled Terrarium, but was changed at some point for the obvious reason no one probably showed much interest in a film titled Terrarium, even though it's a hell of a lot more appropriate than War of the Planets (the `war' consists of a handful of knuckleheads running around shooting at people in rubber masks while the `planets' portion is apparently the director's backyard, which seems to be located somewhere in Las Vegas)...regardless, as others have pointed out the film isn't very good no matter what name it goes by...written, directed, filmed, edited, scored by Mike Conway, the film, which is about as independent as they come, features no one you'd know unless you were related to them (for most this seems their only credit, at least according to the IMDb), and even then I'd think they'd be hard pressed to admit that after watching this movie.



After two and a half stinking minutes of credits, we see a painfully obvious CGI ship crusing through space, and a meteor crashing into a sensor dish, knocking it the hell off. The ship, which is fairly large, initiates an emergency landing (which seems really odd given its size), along with wakening a number of, ahem, astronauts from their cryogenic sleep. Popping into a flashback we learn a bit about the mission (it's some sort of deep space deal, the main intent to colonize an Earth-like planet, which would be kind of difficult in my opinion with only twelve people, but whatever...). Anyway, back on the ship the astronauts awaken to find something has gained entry into the ship and has made off with one of the crew, leaving behind a bloody mess (the astronauts cannot move as of yet as their muscles are in a state of atrophy from being asleep so long). While they're stuck in their chambers, the creature, a sort of space sasquatch, returns a few more times, making off with various female members, not before devouring one in front of the others, which we don't see (the biologist, in her infinite wisdom, believes the beast is carnivorous...well duh). Eventually those yet to be gobbled up get free of their chambers (which look like giant fish tanks), manage to kill the beast, and survey their situation, which doesn't look good. Not only have they crash landed on some mysterious planet, but also the area outside the ship is surrounded by a strange, alien barrier (hence the original title Terrarium). Also, there appears to be some rather hostile egg headed aliens roaming beyond the barrier, armed with weapons that emit blasts that look much like cheap fireworks. After a pointless autopsy of the space ape (which we don't see), those left, about six, make plans to escape the barrier Great Escape style by tunneling under the ship, and leaving a surprise behind for their captors...or something like that...



First off I suppose I should mention this is truly a no budget feature, and it shows, so if you're expecting outstanding special effects you're going to be massively disappointed. I didn't so much mind the obvious cheapness, but my main issue was this film was about as entertaining as getting kicked in the gonsaticales about six or seven times. Seriously, the first half hour we're pretty much stuck watching people lying about within cryogenic chambers making pointless conversation (actually, the film didn't get much more interesting once they were freed, so it didn't really matter)...and I'll tell you what, for people who've supposedly trained extensively with each other prior to their actual mission, they sure as heck didn't seem to know much about their fellow crewmembers other than what their specialties were...and how in the hell were they supposed to create a colony with only twelve people? The ship, at least during the CGI sequences, was ginormous, but those in charge only sent up twelve individuals, the intent being to colonize planet? That makes no sense...oh yeah, each was a specialist in some area (medicine, biology, horticulture, engineering, etc.) so if something happened to one, the rest are pretty much out of luck depended on the particular skill set lost (i.e. if the doctor bought the farm, there'd be no one to provide medical treatment) as no redundancies seemed to be in place (i.e. cross training or anything). I suppose I can't be too harsh in terms of this last aspect, as I've seen this happen in other films. Something else...how is it a ship can fly billions of miles through space on autopilot and not avoid being hit by one lousy, stinking meteor? And everything goes flooey after a single dish gets knocked out? What the hell? I'm pretty sure the Millennium Falcon flew pretty well after it got it's sensor dish lopped of in one of the Star Wars films...oh well...the performances were so low key as to barely even be there, even despite fellow crewmembers dropping like flies (the biggest reaction seemed akin to someone spilling milk), but I wasn't expecting much given most everyone on screen seemed to pull double duty also working behind the scenes when the sequence didn't call for the presence of their character (I suspect this is why a number of character got killed off early, as the actors were needed to perform other off screen duties). At the very least if some character (all of whom were thoroughly uninteresting) got too annoying, there's a good chance they'll soon die, most likely due to their own stupidity (I got the idea these individuals were chosen for this lengthy mission just to get their sub par DNA out of the communal gene pool). One character I was especially pleased to see bite it was the religious guy...now I've got nothing against organized religion, but this god wad was about the most irritating character in the cast, with the incoherent doctor following a close second (here's a tip, when one of your cast has an accent so thick no one can understand him, throw in some subtitles for the audience's sake). Apart from the feeble stabs at character development script was thoroughly rotten and laced with some real doozies, including the following...



"We're the goodies behind the glass!"



"As long as we live there's hope."



"Hey, promise me you're not going to come back dead."



Smearing excrement upon paper does not a script make...a word of warning, if you modify a gorilla suit to create a makeshift space sasquatch, don't expect to get the deposit back from the costume shop from which you rented the suit. For those of you brave enough to stick around to the end, prepare to be treated with a wonderfully lame non-ending, one the writer/director will most assuredly claim was left open ended to promote discussion rather than being honest and stating he couldn't come up with something better (if you want to talk to the director, he seems to spend an awful lot of time on the IMDb shamelessly peddling his various productions). While I'm not a big fan of bashing something that's obviously an early work (everyone has to start somewhere), I can't help but feel whatever money spent here could have gone somewhere else where it might have actually done some good. At the very least movies like this make me appreciate others that display even a modicum of expertise.



The picture quality on this Lion's Gate Entertainment DVD release, presented in fullscreen, looks decent and the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo comes through well enough. There aren't really any actual extras included, other than Spanish subtitles and a couple of previews for other films including Slipstream (2005) and something called Ghetto Dawg 2 - Out of the Pits (2004).



Cookieman108

"

Yikes, I really should read these reviews Before going to BB

doppelganger | Chicago | 12/09/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Other reviews are pretty much right on, it's dramatically ..asinine. But funny, so there is one redeeming factor -that's why the extra star.



DON'T BUY, Rent for a laugh (you might enjoy if you take lightly)"