I stumbled upon this 1986 Sci-Fi movie one day whilst browsing the Sci-Fi section, and I had an initial suspicion that director Lance Lindsay might actually have cashed in on the success of "Alien" with this movie, given what I read on the synopsis on the back of the movie cover.
True enough, this turned out to be somewhat of a rip off of the "Alien" concept, like so many other Sci-Fi movies that came out in that time. But to spice things up a bit, throw in elements from "E.T." as well, and you will end up with "Star Crystal".
"Star Crystal" has an adequate and interesting enough concept idea. The storyline is about a space mission on Mars where the crew pick up an alien life-form and bring it back on their spaceship. Yep, I know, sounds familiar? It turned out that while the concept of this idea was interesting, then the execution to the screen made for a very boring plot and storyline.
The acting in the movie was mediocre, which really didn't reflect well on the overall movie, making it somewhat of an ordeal to actually sit through the movie to the very end. But I endured and stuck with it, as it might actually get better. But it didn't...
I will say that the creature design was actually rather interesting and it turned out to be the best part about the entire movie. However, I was under the impression that this would be a vicious alien with lots of teeth, as the movie cover showed, but that was as far from the actual presentation of the creature in the movie as it could be. So don't get your hopes up on seeing the creature as shown on the DVD cover.
All in all, then "Star Crystal" was not an impressive movie, not now and I doubt that it was back in 1986 as well. I am not overly keen on Sci-Fi as a genre, and "Star Crystal" did nothing to boost my interest in the Sci-Fi genre.
