Battle for Skyark

Battle for SkyArk: a movie with no battle for the aforementioned Ark. All we get are a handful of kid bums with laughable weaponry, pitted against unconvincing "monsters" who could die... of laughter when they see the so-called weapons. The whole movie drags through, the one massive monster is yet another take on the guy-turned-giant-monster- with-mask-and giant-weapon we've seen hundreds of times, from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome to the Resident Evil and Silent Hill movies/games franchise. No development at all, just kids scurrying through what seems to be a huge junkyard. I had few hopes, considering the score given by other viewers, but I didn't think it'd be such a sad sight. The kids do what they can, I won't throw them the stones, they're all very young actors. Whoever made the movie though, should consider a change of career and run said junkyard instead. At least, they'd get an honest pay for piles of rubbish.

The movie is supposed to be futuristic but the way it's made it looks dated and old. The actors are young and inexperienced (I hope so) The story is boring and predictable but is presented in most chaotic manner. The CGI effects are basic and poor quality. If you want to make a low budget movie - I don't think science fiction is a good option.

Now my opinion on the movie - It's kind of movie where you wish there was a negative ranking on IMDb. Where you can give a movie -2 or -3 because there is hardly anything good in the movie and it's full of mistakes, awful acting and cheap CGI. It can become the 'Room' one day and people might start watching it as it's so bad. The minimum length of review on IMDb is 10 lines otherwise just the word 'awful' will do sufficient job in describing this movie. As previous reviews mention - if you are having difficulties sleeping - this is a good movie to put on. You can get around your friends and family and have a laugh watching this as well. Enough said.

INTRO: Unfortunately, I was bittersweetly disappointed with this movie; let's break it down...

BUDGET: Clearly Too Low. Movies are expensive, but it seems clear to me that this movie was out of it's budget's league. At least the movie got finished, which is in and of itself an accomplishment, but it seems like there wasn't enough to give it the polish and finesse that the concept really deserved. I think this could have been a gem, but I get the impression someone got a little too ambitious and jumped the gun.

FX: Not bad, but rather sparse for Sci-Fi. The environment, and elements that required obvious Motion-Graphic/3D treatment were pretty well done; they didn't distract or disconnect you from the movie, and that's really all you NEED. Having said that, given that it's a sci-fi flick (and that the cover sort of gives a similar impression), it didn't seem like there was a whole lot going on in terms of digital effects; much of the visual effects seemed to be done on set, which is fine for keeping costs down, but also doesn't allow you to edit and refine things in the post-production stage; that can make all the difference when trying to add more intensity to an otherwise 'flat' scene.

ACTING: It felt forced. It didn't come across as natural at all; there were a couple actors and a couple of moments where things 'felt right', but it was a really mixed bag, feeling forced overall. Maybe (again) the budget constraint caused the process to be rushed, or maybe because the movie's target audience is kids, the decision was made to just 'rough it'... or maybe there was too much work placed on too few people, causing burnout(?)... Either way, direction, takes, and/or talent were lacking for a polished experience.

PACE: Too slow. The movie really seems to drag on more than anything and emotionally flat-line throughout large swaths of the film. Due to the level of acting, lack of effects, and lack of developing/fleshing out the overall storyline, it feels like lots of time is wasted with what can only be described as "awkwardness".

STORY/CONCEPT: Good, but needs some fleshing out. Overall, the concept was actually great. The problem, however, was its vision. The animated introduction was a little complex (given the amount of info vs time), then throughout the movie we have long periods where really next to nothing is developing, and then nearly everything is revealed at the end. The middle, where conceivably the conflict would REALLY begin to gaining traction, was more of a whimper; not even the characters were fleshed out or understood as individuals to a point where one could connect with them on an emotional/personal level. Also, most of what was revealed at the end was rather predictable and not really much of a revelation by the time it was formally stated. Thus, much of what was displayed at the beginning of the movie and unveiled at the end should have been evenly spread out throughout to make it less turbulent to digest.

DETAILS: Too many "ugh" moments. - Even though I loved how the SkyArk looked, it drove me nuts seeing it within Earth's atmosphere, and then seeing it clearly orbiting the Earth in space only moments later. It seemed rather inconsistent. - The monsters aren't scary, and often-times they were just so lethargically slow and awkward. They looked a little neat, most notably the semi-transformed individuals near the end, but they didn't seem super-human enough in terms of speed and ability. - No blood... really? This movie needed a little more blood; the weapons were always clean, and even the only gun-shot in the movie didn't have any audio/visual weight/impact to it; you'd almost have been better off to zoom out the window, make a flash, and have it be an implied death. - As an adult, I found myself rolling my eyes and sighing too often in regard to the acting/character progression. The mannerisms, the gestures, the movements, the lines... there was just way too much lacking, giving the impression of extreme cheesiness. Part of me thinks this should be a series of movies or a web-series, and the story should begin earlier; that whole intro should have been a movie on its own where you focus on getting the fundamentals spot on, and then use this base as a springboard to get on to the more complex sequences in a sequel.

FAVOURITE LINE: "To survive in a world of monsters, you have to become a monster. You can stop this; all this pain and suffering... Drink!" - Rusty I'm so glad this movie had a line to really reflect on and provoke thought; in my case it actually reminded me of something Hitler is said to have believed regarding control and how the only way one can change a given power structure is to rise to the top.

CONCLUSION: All in all, my frustrations with this film are bittersweet and in a sense almost a compliment; the concept has SO MUCH AWESOME potential to be a solid family movie, but it currently isn't fleshed out enough in any area. I definitely wouldn't throw out the concept, but I'd start it over in a few years after REALLY fleshing out the story/'universe' more and developing the characters with increased complexity.

This movie has a great many ideas that could have been put together effectively, had the director and writers had the right goal in mind. The goal that they chose was to make a film of self-discovery, early teenage romance, and a coming-of-age story set in the midst of apocalyptic desolation. All that would have been fine except that too many necessary parts of the puzzle were not available.

As always, I am here to brazenly presume that I could do better! If you're interested, I have some "fixes" I would have applied had I been involved.

1. The biggest missing piece, of course, is the acting. Coming-of-age stories are typically dramatic in the extreme, and very demanding of the actors involved. Early love, infatuation, disappointment and broken hearts, betrayal, jealousy, depression, passion, the death of loved ones.. It should have been evident from the start that all of the young people involved in this film don't have the acting chops yet to pull this off. I would instead suggest that the film be focused much more on action. Less time playing sad music and watching downcast eyes. I got REALLY tired of watching the hero periodically give up and slump to the ground in defeat, especially since he didn't seem to be trying very hard. Don't ask him to portray such feelings, instead keep him in the fray. Bring on the monsters!

2. Budget concerns. Obviously this is not a high budget feature. That's OK, they did great with what they had. I think it could have come off a little bit better if they'd put more emphasis on dirt. Quite frankly, all of the important parts of the movie were much too clean to be convincing. The actors looked freshly washed. Some of them even have hair that can't exactly keep it's look if you live in a garbage dump. I would suggest filming after they'd actually lived in the dust and sand for a few days without a shower.

3. Direction and Pacing. The story kept slowing down, the motives of the characters appeared to change constantly. Just have a goal and stick with it. The entire story appears to happen within a day! That's not enough time for the characters to grow and reach the sort of conclusions they reached. I felt as though this should have been at least a few weeks worth. Some re-writing is absolutely essential here. Character growth takes time. If you really want your story's timeline to happen quickly, leave out the drama and take my earlier suggestion to bring on the action.

4. Violence. This is conceptually a very violent movie! This movie has monsters, sword fighting, killing, it's all here. And yet blood was mysteriously absent. The fighting stunts are weak and difficult to follow, and completely nonsensical. Blood is a must, and death scenes should be on camera, not suddenly off camera and assumed.

5. Common sense. This is tough and maybe even unfair, but too many things happen that simply don't exemplify the sort of things rational people would do. The writer should have sat back, had some random people read the script and ask what impressions came to mind. People would immediately give some corrections. It can be hard for a writer to pull his head out of his work and look at it objectively, so outside input is critical.

6. Casting. There was really not much need to have so many actors in this film. Or rather, there was no need to have so many extras. Too many of the kids said and did nothing, all the way until they were removed from the story. Why not just trim the cast down to the more important characters?

I'm not certain who the audience for this movie was supposed to be. Is it a family film? It has some pretty violent undertones for a family film. It's clearly a sci-fi monster film. It has all the elements of something I wouldn't want my children to watch, and yet it pulls it's punches, coming off as surgically clean. It's like a horror film with no horror.

bleh! Stay away!

I hope these kids are given a proper chance at acting with better writing and directing.

• CG was pretty decent in some parts (there was not much CG though), however some CG effects were also a little off.

• Bad writing! The story is fairly rubbish and the dialog while 'ok' in a couple of small parts, was mostly just bad filler.

• Poor characters who flip-flop attitude and decisions between scenes.

• Bad directing. :\

• Bad locations and sets!

• World felt empty despite the dialog trying to imply differently.

• Prosthetics were not too bad.