User reviews

I thought this movie was OK-if you're stuck home sick. It had a good SF premise but it fell apart somehow. They opened the film with a scene of someone falling through empty space-exactly the way the film Predators opens. It shares other similarities with Predators in that some of the "aliens" look like they wandered in from a set of the film Predators. No matter-it was made for light Saturday afternoon viewing anyway, so what the hey. The female lead was in good shape- looking like she had just trained for a Triathlon, which is something you don't see very often in contemporary SF. Good ending-I was expecting a poor one since it became kind of a 'monster mash' somewhere towards the end. All in all it doesn't work as big screen material for one reason or another but it works as a film to watch if you are under the weather. Thats all I got.

Oh, dear... where to begin. 'Cheap' is the word I'd use to describe 'Survivor.' Even the title is hardly inspired. I ran the word 'survivor' through the Internet Movie Database's search to try and find this film, but there are so many other films/TV shows called it, that I had to end up looking it up via an actor's name. In fact, the searching for it online was actually more enjoyable than the film.

Okay, that maybe a little harsh, but it was just so cheap it was hardly worth bothering with. It's about (and I can barely be bothered to regurgitate it all again!) the last few survivors from a doomed Earth, now destined to fly through space while they search for a new home planet. The spaceships all look computer-generated, but that doesn't last long. The ship soon crashes and they have to survive on an inhospitable planet. Or at least one of them does. A lone girl has to basically fight through hordes of native humans (and later monsters) to try and rescue the few remaining crewmates who survived the crash.

It basically plays out like 'After Earth' but with less of a budget. Then again, After Earth hardly set the Box Office on fire, so that is a strange film to base another one on! Later on the cast moves to underground and, what with the inclusion of the monsters, it ends up a bit like 'The Descent.' Even sci-fi fans won't really enjoy this film. It's just too cheap and too unoriginal to really offer anything new. Yeah, if you're really that bored on a Saturday afternoon and you come across this film on TV (no way you would ever feel justified in paying for it!) you may just sit through it. Only if you're bored though. Really bored.

Danielle C. Ryan runs so much in Survivor that I started training for a 5k race because of it. She runs on hills, rocks, and more rocky terrain. She even would run underwater if she could. She scales cliffs, darts through caves, and unsympathetically tells her crew mate "you're going to die" (maybe because she's not a good runner?). Most of the movie is like a cross-fit advert.

It has a weak story and every enemy overacts (i.e., flips, spins through air, flails, etc.) when killed but if you watch Survivor with low expectations it's not terrible.

This "movie" is about a running blond pretty girl. Originally she came from a spaceship, but that does not matter very much. The story is paper thin or to say it precisely, there is no story. It is one of that stories which is that flat, that it bends time and space and you know not only from the beginning how this movie will end, you will just know the complete plot. Thats because you have seen this story in 10 other equal cheap "Oh no! My spaceship crashed!" scifi movies. I am pretty sure the screenplay was not longer then. "Ships having an accident, then pretty girl runs around, kills some evil dudes, finds a horse yadayadayada the end." Its one of that movies you can watch when you already planned to fall asleep at your couch or when you are drunk like a skunk and want to watch some easy nothing. If you watching it sober, you will for sure fast forward half of the movie.

I was pretty much captivated by the lead actress and would have turned it off after 15 minutes if not for her. That face! My guess is she played some kind of sport growing up because she's athletic and easily the best part about this movie since she lends some credibility to the action sequences and has amazingly expressive eyes. As an aside Hollywood seems to have forgotten how important facial expressions are in conveying what is going on, preferring to dazzle with effects and hammer you over the head with inane dialogue.

Anywho, Chuchran does a great job, but it's just too rough with too little plot for anyone to overcome.

Having read the synopsis for this movie, I must admit that I didn't really expect too much from it, and now having seen it, I can honestly say that the movie lived up to the low expectations.

The story is about the last of mankind searching the vast reaches of space for an inhabitable planet. A spaceship tracking a signal has to go into a wormhole, when disaster strikes. The ship is torn apart and the surviving crew is stranded on the alien planet, having to fight for their very lives to stay alive, against hostile humans and monstrous humanoids.

The storyline was essentially adequate, albeit a bit too simple. And there was a bit too much focus on Danielle Chuchran's athletic skills for running and rock-climbing.

The creatures in the movie were looking more like a crossbreed between the orcs and trolls of "Lord of the Rings", which just made the movie seem like a half-hearted attempt at a Sci-Fi movie. And while we are speaking of "Lord of the Rings", the scenes with Danielle Chuchran running around the barren rocky landscape with a panning camera flying around was just too much like the scene where Legolas was running around. At least do something original...

The reason for me sitting down to watch the movie was Danielle Chuchran and Kevin Sorbo. And sure, they made the movie watchable and endurable, but they were struggling hard with an almost non-existing script and storyline.

"Survivor" is a below average Sci-Fi movie, and if you are in for an evening of Sci-Fi, then I would suggest that you find something else, because this movie is not really worth it.

A mere 4 out of 10 stars to "Survivor".

First of all, I didn't expect much from this going into it, which helps with this sort of thing. I was pleasantly surprised.

It's all a matter of expectation. I used to browse the sci-fi sections of the video stores back in the 90s trying to find anything decent and this move was better than a LOT of what I watched back then.

It's better than all of these similar-themed movies I watched back in the day: - Survivor (1987) - Nightfall (1988) - Def-Con 4 (1985) - Cherry 2000 (1987) - Cyborg (1989) - maybe not too much better than this one, but a little.

I would put in on about the same level of cheesy sci-fi action fare as:

• Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) - Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

(well maybe not as good as the last one)

Seriously though, if you don't expect much of this, you'll probably be entertained.

• pretty good action

• pretty good low-budget special effects

• plot moves along pretty well without too many lags

• good make up effects

• lots of gorgeous southern Utah scenery

• strong lead performances by Chuchran and Sorbo

Overall, I would describe it as a pretty decent Sci-Fi time waster.

And to reference other commenter's' mentions of Morlocks, this movie is WAY better than the Guy Pierce/Jeremy Irons, The Time Machine (2002)!

If you are interested in another Chuchran/Lyde collaboration, The Curse of the Dragon Slayer (2013) is also a pretty decent 80s style fantasy/sword & sorcery flick.

There is almost no plot after a scout ship crashes on unknown planet, unless you count Kate traveling 60 kilometers over semi-mountainous terrain to rescue her injured captain and then a score more to find the crash site so she can send a distress beacon.

There is very little dialogue for at least half the movie, which is good because Danielle Chuchran delivers it poorly in quick but flat lines.

One thing is for certain. Kate, who has lived all her two-score years of life on a space ship is in physical shape that boggles the mind. She runs and climbs and runs and climbs. In crashing, Kate falls out of the scout ship and plummets apparently miles but opens a tiny chute about 50 feet above the water and survives. Then she gets knocked out and captured, but her captor is gone when she wakes up so she escapes. He or another of the natives (all wearing masks) traps her again, but she escapes again by simply climbing away. Chased by a half-dozen or more natives who are almost on top of her, somehow she is magically away from them and "safe". Three monsters corner her with three arrows left so she climbs a sheer cliff, then shoots at least twice that many arrows to kill them all.

More running, more impossible fighting. The monsters have 4 inch claws but never use them and outweigh Kate 2-1 but she defeats several of them in hand to hand several times.

Finally some plot and dialogue with about 20 minutes left in this 1-1/2 hour film. And the plot is not that great.

In this part of the movie, natives remove their clumsy masks which appeared to be for breathing, but apparently they don't need them.

Chuchran has a pretty enough face, if you enjoy looking at a dirty girl with unkempt hair. But she is not enough to carry this movie with its ridiculous fights and lame plot. Wait til you see the ending.

Sword and Planet is a really rare subgenre, and I was so excited to find one that it probably colors my review, but this movie definitely exceeded my expectation.

It's pretty much the classic Earth-man lands on a hostile primitive planet and socks it to the local aliens with their superior kung-fu. But of course, this time the Earth-man is actually the Earth-girl Kate Mitra (Danielle Chuchran). I'm not sure what happens to her sleeves, but she doesn't need them to kick lots of alien and scale every mountain like a champ. I'm not sure how much of those stunts Chuchran does on her own, but whoever did it, dayum, good work. The character Kate is a bit of a stone, but plot-wise, it makes sense, she's falling back on her training and tuning herself out in this truly traumatic experience. And frankly, this is what I like to see in my Sword and Planet heroes, and I'm glad that they didn't decide that because she's a girl she needs to have a softer side. Kate Mitra proudly stands shoulder to shoulder with Sword and Planet heroes like John Carter and Flash Gordon.

I felt like the combat was very realistic too. There aren't a lot of useless spins or flips. There are a few leaping attacks but they almost always end badly, which is good, being dramatic in RL fighting is rarely a good idea. People do not expire from small wounds, you do see people go for take downs and finishers. There are moments when Kate gets concussed or winded and she never does that weird second-wind thing where the movie hero is losing and then inexplicably gets their strength back and wins because the movie plot needs them too. This makes Kate Mitra a much more reasonable and relateable character than a lot of other action heroes and makes the action feel more credible. I'm especially pleased that Survivor pulls this off because I absolutely would have forgiven them for non-real action in a female-lead Sword and Planet movie.

Dialog is not great. For most of the movie, Kate Mitra is alone anyways, and when she is around someone she could talk to, she's usually understandably out of breath or emotionally shocked by the last crazy thing that happened. However, I think there's a certain realism to this, you do get the impression that Kate is stomping out her own feelings because she has to survive. Plot isn't particularly twisty or turny either, she's basically just lurching from one disaster to the next until the director runs out of film, but if you're a fan of Flash Gordon or John Carter stories, that's pretty true to the genre. And to be honest, bad dialog or plot would have ruined the movie, so I'm okay with the decision to keep the movie focused on stunts and bare shoulders.

This film is, indeed, all about Danielle Chuchran. She is beautiful, incredibly athletic and a quite decent actress. The sci- fi in the film is of the type of Firefly, you know, you go to another planet and there are American cowboys there. So not that much. However, the few sci- fi bits in the story did further it, so in my mind that part was a success.

After enjoying the hell out of Shadow of the Cabal, I had to see this movie as well, especially since it starred Danielle, and I can tell you it did not disappoint. The story, as usual (shame, Arrowstorm!), was a bit silly, but simple enough to not bother me tremendously. Kevin Sorbo did play a larger role, although it's becoming a pattern in these films: he appears as some sort of father authority figure, does a few scenes, then splits.

The action scenes were really good, as expected from a professional stunt actress, but also the director has to be good at it. The scenes were great and reminded me of the orc elf battle that hooked me when watching Shadow of the Cabal. The implanted computer, scanner and holographic screen was a great addition and allowed the story to move fast over some logistical problems like how people find each other, coordinate over large distances and detect food or injuries.

There were issues with the film. The technical details in the introduction almost threw me off completely in the beginning of the film. The character of Weston was ridiculous and completely unnecessary - they could have done more with him. Also they took their sweet time to "get it". I won't spoil it here, but as a hint just listen carefully at the alien language and you can figure it out in the first 15 minutes.

Other than that, few characters and a lot less character development made this almost a pure action film. Danielle was great, and also Melanie Stone, which you may (barely) recognize from the Mythica series. Sorbo acted well, but his character was a little bit ridiculous. He had a lot of scenes about bones and almost all cracked me up - no pun intended (OK, I did intend it a little).

It is far from perfect, but was one of the best movies in this particular genre and I really don't understand the mostly mean comments the film has received here. I mean, if they would have used cars instead of running around it would have been Mad Max, and you bloody loved that one!

And Saves the Human Race. Oh, my "Review is too short". Now, it's not.

That's it. After she lands on the planet the same scene is repeated over and over. 110 pound girl defeats larger stronger men who helpfully attack her one at a time. I made only made to the end with lots of fast forward and I know I didn't miss any vital plot points because there aren't any. 3 stars for the hot girl that's it.