Star Runners

A TV movie that is a cross between PITCH BLACK and THE FIfTH ELEMENT, with a little SERENITY thrown in for good measure. A space crew is ferrying a crate that turns out to contain a female with extraordinary powers. Naturally, various bad guys are after her. The crew ends up stuck on a planet full of man-eating creatures. You can figure where it goes from there. Shot in Bulgaria with a no-name cast. Interestingly enough, perhaps out of political correctness, the female with the weird powers is played by a black woman. In ELEMENT and SERENITY, similar characters were played by white actresses. At best, RUNNERS is a time killer. Catchy title, though. Takes me back to the '70s and '80s and several kitschy sci-fi flicks that were all ripoffs of STAR WARS.

Ty Johns and Lei Chen are smugglers in space. They get caught but the authorities give them a second chance. They are to transport a crate but this time, they have a look inside. It's a naked girl named Asta. They crash onto a planet infested with giant killer bugs.

This is a TV movie from The Sci-Fi Channel. Finding a naked girl in a crate is Firefly. Giant killer bugs is classic sci-fi horror. This is a B-movie. Its production is second tier TV level. It's all second tier. It is what it is.

As a viewer who never watched the big sci-fi shows this movie is pretty entertaining. It had my attention the whole time which is (for me) a sign of a relatively good production. Yes, the cheap production was palpable. I don't want to analyze, I want to be entertained. That's exactly what this movie did. The story was forseeable most of the time but nevertheless it had some nice twist and turns. IMO this is a movie you can watch with children next to you. Little gruesome, not too much. All in all for sci-fi beginners and people who don't want to be overwrought with special effects

Yes, it the plot is incredibly formulalistic. Yes, the CGI is largely inept. But no one who has viewed "Centipede" or "AVH: Alien vs. Hunter" or the "War of the Worlds" remake with C. Thomas Howell could legitimately rate this one (1) out of ten (10). The movie is fast paced, though hokey; the actors (particularly Trinneer and Lee) are largely competent to good; the villains are evil enough; the chicks are attractive if not gorgeous. The plot is thin, but has some interesting science fiction content. The most negative thing I can say is that the evil humans are scripted poorly, directed without much spirit, and underplayed by actors who maybe don't have much talent. Michel Culkin (Colonel/General Bishop) certainly isn't Sidney Greenstreet, but probably suffers more from weak material and dull direction than acting ineptness. This is definitely not great theater, but it is certainly an acceptable SciFi (I just reject that SyFy inanity) space opera.

SyFy have had a very dubious reputation in my eyes. Once in a while they have done something that is somewhat tolerable, and even they are heavily flawed, but all too often their resume ranges from bad to bottom-of-the-barrel quality. Star Runners is nowhere near a great movie, but it is a flawed yet tolerable one, especially when compared to Titanic II, Quantum Apocalypse, Dinocroc vs.Supergator, Battle of Los Angeles, 2010:Moby Dick and Alien vs.Hunter(and they are just a handful of the movies among SyFy's very worst). It did have some good things, a catchy title, decent photography and editing, interesting science fiction(a vast improvement seeing as I often got the impression that SyFy have never been good at researching what they include or to make it plausible at least) attractive female characters and good turns from Connor Tineer and James Kyson Lee. Where it falls down is in the formulaic, highly derivative and structurally-thin storytelling, slapdash special effects(SyFy have done worse in this aspect though), stilted and very uninteresting scripting, clichéd and poorly written characters especially the villains and the villains being largely underplayed even by Michael Culkin whose role was beneath him. Overall, didn't impress me but I was expecting worse and at the end of the day I can think of at least 20 SyFy movies that are worse than Star Runners. 5/10 Bethany Cox