Dark Planet (1997) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_385" align="alignright" width="353"] Official Score = 2 Devils[/caption]

Directed by: Albert Magnoli (American Anthem) & starring: Paul Mercurio (Exit To Eden), Harley Jane Kozak (Arachnophobia), Michael York (Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery), Maria Ford (Alien Terminator), Ed O'Ross (Universal Soldier) & Phil Morris (Atlantis: The Lost Empire).

Dark Planet is kind of an interesting tale of how a few hundred years from now, the final world war will be fought between regular humans and mutants (known as the, 'Rebels') and genetically altered humans (known as the, 'Alpha's') on Earth and elsewhere...

You see toward the tale end of the war, a toxin is released in to the air that ends up mutating and slowly destroying all life on the planet ... There only salvation is a new habitable planet that is at the other side of a dangerous wormhole, that had been discovered by a man by the name of, 'Anson Hawke' (Mercurio).

So both sides decide to declare a truce and send teams on board a ship that will be commanded by both Captain Winter (York) & Colonel Liz Brenden (Kozak)...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320"] Colonel Liz Brendan (Harley Kozak) will have to make the tough choices on her mission of mercy, when her and her group will be betrayed![/caption]

Now after they launch though, everything starts off fine enough, they go and find Hawke at the Alpha Penal Colony and take him on board (he was the only person to have ever successfully navigated the the dangerous wormhole, and off they go...

But as they make it to the wormhole, they end up discovering that it has been mined using Rebel mines, and is being controlled by a profiteer... As they get passed these obstacles, the Rebels begin to notice strange things like a whole section of the ship that they had been told had been rendered uninhabitable, actually being inhabited by a Alpha hit squad... And because of all of this, we will end up finding out if old enemies can truly put their differences aside for the common good or not!

In the end this movie does take some getting used to, this is due to the fact that, A: It demonstrates a poor belief in mankind being able to unify.

B: I also thought that the special effects in this movie were pretty lame in what the weapons they had were. (I mean most of the weapons in this movie look like the standard weapons that we have in the modern day... except apparently hundreds of years in the future!

If you are a fan of 90s B Movies though, then I do think that you might find out that you really like this one!

http://youtu.be/xmMWld-QBp4

Universal Solider (1992) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_325" align="alignright" width="263"] Official Score = 3 Devils[/caption]

When I was a kid (as I am sure was the case with a lot of us that grew up watching action films in the 1990s), we can all remember the good ole days when the movies that Jean-Claude Van Damme (Time Cop) didn’t suck!

Well that isn't entirely fair of me to say, the main reason that I say that, is that for the last many years, Van Damme has been doing really low grade films that didn't sound to good to me (although, I have heard that he has been picking up the pace, what with having recently done, The Expendables 2 (2012) and the latest sequel in the Universal Soldier franchise!

And speaking of the Universal Soldier franchise, I thought that I would review the first Universal Soldier movie as this movie holds a special place for me as this was the first movie that I ever saw of his in the Theater!

That’s right folks, you see, this movie, which was directed by: Roland Emmerich (The Noah’s Ark Principal), and which stars Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher) and Ally Roberts (The Profiler), told the story of how in the early 90s, the government decides to revive dead Soldiers that had died in combat at some point in the last 30 years and enhance them in every way so that they could become a sort of genetic super solder…

The only problem is that two of the genetic super soldiers that died in Vietnam and had been brought back to life for this program, by the name of Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) and Andrew Scott (Lundgren)…

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="420"] The Universal Soldiers in action![/caption]

Now before Deveraux had passed away, he was sort of a mild mannered good soldier that was fighting for his country like any other good soldier would have done, but Andrew Scott had been suffering from combat fatigue and was starting to get more and more violent in the way that he would kill the enemy!

In the end though, as both Luc and Andrew begin to remember their old lives, Luc starts to want to get back to the life he had led before he died in Vietnam, but before he can do so, he has to try and stop Andrew Scott from continuing with the bloody massacre in the United States in the early 90s, that he had started in Vietnam decades before!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) a re-animated super soldier who is about to remember who he really is![/caption]

For me, I have to admit that I still freakin love this movie! It had a great cast of action super stars at what I still believe to be the height of their careers, it had a fun (somewhat believable) story line, as well as fantastic special effects that I still think are pretty awesome!

All in all, if you have a chance to see this movie, then I highly recommend it, it is a fun one, that you might like as well!

http://youtu.be/gBUTgd4M6w8