Lethal Target – Tubi

Action · Sci-Fi

On a futuristic space colony, marshall Nikki Savage is sent on an undercover mission aboard a rundown spaceship to rid the world of an alien invasion.

To give you a sense of where this movie is going, the opening scene consists of gorgeous women artfully glistening as they do “hard labor” wearing shifts and no undies—they have boots though! Cue sexy grunting as they lift heavy rocks. Pure 90s sexploitation—I’d completely forgotten those existed!

A badass hottie who was a cop, but was framed for trying to combat corruption, is recruited for a secret mission. Personally, I would have asked for a full pardon, not accepted a measly 10 years off my sentence, but that’s just me. Especially since it’s a suicide job. She goes undercover to infiltrate a science vessel that had suspiciously stopped communicating with blah blah blah. The background they gave her was “non-monogamous tantric”. So guess who’s getting laid?

There’s lots and lots of nudity and sex for the plot to hold onto—not a complaint, just an observation.

Given all the sexy-time romping, I was surprised when the movie tore a page out of Alien and produced a body bursting event and a bonafide alien to chase! What wasn’t surprising however, was that the “alien-virus” was transmitted through sexual contact.

The dialog is a weird animal that switches between cliched innuendo and tough chic banter. Like everything else in this movie, it exists to pad the movie between the nudity and sex scenes. The acting is stiff, but then nobody’s watching this movie for the acting.

Someone wanted to make softcore porn in space. See it as anything else and you’ll be disappointed. The action is lame, the plot unoriginal, the acting stilted. The nudity and sexy situations are the sole reasons this movie exists, if taken in that vein, it’s fine. It’s not terrible. The plot is a little silly but it’s got structure. It’s a clear, entertaining path from beginning to end.

My biggest beef about this movie is that it just ends. The ship blows up thwarting the alien invasion, and girlfriend is sailing off into the black in the escape pod. There’s no wrap-up, we can only assume that blah blah blah held up their side of the bargain. But who knows?

This movie commits to the bit and I’d definitely it watch again. 4 stars.

 

5th Passenger – Tubi

Sci-Fi · Thriller

In outer space, in the year 2151, a pregnant officer in an interstellar escape pod fights a ruthless alien determined to be the only living species.

Welcome to the future! The age of space travel! Racism is eliminated only to be replaced by a rigid class structure: Citizen/Non-Citizen. Citizens live in a beautiful dome of climate-controlled luxury. Non-citizens live outside the dome in a polluted wasteland. Non-citizens are nicknamed “roaches” and regardless of their abilities or achievements they are harshly discriminated against.

The story is told in flashback. All the tropes are there: A shipwreck! A lifeboat situation! An alien monster! A conspiracy! All the makings of a decent sci-fi thriller.

But then the movie—made in 2018 mind you—takes an off ramp into “crazy person imagined it all because they ran out of their meds”.

What the fuck.

This is what happens when you write yourself into a corner either because you ran out of money, or you didn’t have the imagination to create a proper climax. Don’t really care which. All I know is that the filmmakers wrapped this up in the most trite, hand-waving, bullshit kind of way.

Stars from Star Trek Next Generation and Voyager could not save this crap. 1.5 stars.

 

The Last Scout – Tubi

Sci-Fi · Action · Adventure

Following the destruction of Earth, a team of astronauts battles the elements and scours the universe to find an inhabitable new home for mankind.

I’m not usually a fan of we-grossed-up-the-planet-and-now-have-to-find-another-planet movies because I’m of the you-only-get-one-earth-so-fix-it mindset. But I figured what the heck, I’ll check it out anyway.

In this case, we didn’t just gross up the planet — war destroyed it. Lucky for us, we’re space traveling folk. So now it’s off to find a new home.

The movie rambles. A half hour in and I’m wondering what exactly is supposed to happen. They’re looking for a planet, yes. There’s tension in the crew, yes. But it’s all pretty bland stuff. No compelling characters, trope-y interactions. We’ve seen this countless times. What is new about this movie?

One hour in and I still don’t know what this movie is supposed to be or what it’s trying to say. Maybe it’s a psychological thriller about the effects of isolation and hopelessness? Dunno. It’s all so vague.

The real problem I have with this movie is that every “crisis” is manufactured. Yes, plot demands certain things, but those things need to happen organically. This decision, this mindset leads to that outcome. You can’t just throw shit in and hope it makes sense.

The the whole mysterious killer thing made no fucking sense.

A story, especially a genre story, is a fast track to the ending. You set up certain circumstances that lead to the next circumstances and so on, eventually getting to a logical, natural ending. You don’t suddenly start killing people an hour in with absolutely zero set up and think the audience won’t be confused.

This was just a mess. 1 star

 

Star Quest – Tubi

Sci-Fi

A crew of cryogenically frozen astronauts embarks on a mission to outer space, then awakens 100 years later to discover something went terribly wrong.

A group of astronauts wake up from cryo-sleep to find their Captain dead. Then the crew starts dying one by one. This is how you do a low-budget space movie! A dead captain! A slowly dwindling crew! All hell has broken loose by half-hour in. Get the popcorn & settle in.

This movie had the exact same tropes as The Last Scout: the ineffectual captain, the cocky science person, the addict — and it just did so much more with them. Highly entertaining.

The ending was a nice twist – all round fun movie. 4 stars.

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That’s it for this week.

Until next time!