Alien Planet

Being overwhelmed by CGI in so many films (often not even great CGI) it was so fun to experience a film that returned to old school practical effects, and more importantly, did it in such a great way! They make up, effects, and designs were fantastic and truly made the film enjoyable to watch. It honors the way filmmaking used to be and frankly I think we could use some more of the classic style.

Also, the film included interesting commentary on environmental issues as well as socio-political conflicts and how often times not finding common ground or working together can be lead to the ultimate conflict for all.

Of course I had never even heard about this 2023 sci-fi movie titled "Alien Planet" prior to stumbling upon it by random chance. Normally, then sci-fi is not my go-to genre of movies, but I do sit down every now and then and watch something sci-fi. And thus, I opted to sit down and watch "Alien Planet".

I can't claim to be harboring much of any great expectations to writer and director Alan Maxson's 2023 movie "Alien Planet" given the fairly low-budget-looking cover/poster for the movie.

The movie actually was watchable. Not a great movie though, but it was adequately watchable, if you don't mind watching low budget sci-fi. The storyline in the movie, as written by Alan Maxson, was pretty straightforward. And the movie looked and felt like it was made with a lot of heart and spirit put into the project.

Needless to say that I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. But then again, the performers were so heavily disguised under prosthetics and make-up that they would be unrecognizable.

The special effects in the movie were fair enough. Some of the effects were good, such as the lasers and the make-up and prosthetics. However, the space-cat, Giree, looked horribly fake.

If you are a hardcore sci-fi fan, then you might get much more enjoyment out of "Alien Planet" than I did.

My rating of writer and director Alan Maxson's 2023 movie "Alien Planet" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Few low budget films of this genre deliver as satisfyingly as Alien Planet, from the always enjoyable twisted imagination of veteran horror actor, writer, producer and director Alan Maxson! From the outset the cast were easily seen as being totally committed to this project and the special effects were maximized to optimum effectiveness. This will certainly be added to my list of SciFi film collection. As a longtime fan of Maxson's, it's easy to see his unmistakable mark on this gem, even from behind the camera. The Alan Maxson signature "gore" is delightfully all over this one. Well done to ALL involved!!!

OK, always try to say something nice first ... so the makeup was actually pretty good, almost impressive. And that is the only thing positive I can say about this movie. The rest of the special effects (besides makeup) were just a notch above high-schoolish and the script was horrible. As to the acting, well I comment on it when I see anything worth mentioning.

And please, for the rest of you viewers, don't be fooled by the friends and family that wrote those positive reviews that do not even closely resemble the movie. A quick clue to see if a review is real or not, just look to see how many other movie reviews the person has contributed. If this is the only movie they ever reviewed, its a good clue it is garbage.

Don't waste you time watching this, most syfi films from the 80's are better than this drivel the acting is sub standard, the costumes are straight out of the 70's, the acting is very bad from all actors and the set design well don't get me started, so much plywood and old technology with more plywood applied over the top. Lighting is also totally wrong and the story and script writing are laughable but not in a good way. The video editing of this film is badly done, the the cuts and color correction are so bad.

My recommendation is that this film is only worth watching, if you want to see every thing you shouldn't do when making a film.