Within the Rock

Apparently some people are not used to made for TV movies. Possibly too young- they were everywhere in the late 60's and into the 70's. They do not have a huge F/X budget like Star Wars, Close Encounters of the 3'rd Kind, or Superman, etc. However, Within the Rock is way above the Sci-Fi 'B' movies of the 50's and 60's.

As to the plot, NASA and quite a few world governments are concerned about the possibility of a 'rogue' celestial body impacting our planet. A few years back, an object passed within something like less than a million miles of Earth- on a galactic scale, this is approximately next door. And, let's not forget the extinction level event that occurred 65 million years ago, that left iridium layers that are bigger than any other found on this planet ,and coincidentally occurred when dinosaurs became extinct.

The actors by and large were fine- sci-fi is not Shakespeare. If I wanted to watch Shakespeare, that's what I would be watching.

I liked this movie and recommended it to my sister.

A rather large moon is on course for a collision with Earth. Dr Shaw (Caroline Barclay) is sent with a team of space miners to drill tunnels into that moon, preparing its destruction with explosives. However, they discover an ancient hostile life-form 'within the rock', and then they are killed one by one. Their survival is not made easier by Ryan (Xander Berkeley), the captain of the spacecraft who wants to use the opportunity and run with a fortune of platinum they discovered, too.

To many viewers, "Within the Rock" (1996) looks like a rip-off to "Armageddon" (1998) but looking at the dates, it can't be. Instead it is borrowing a lot from the usual monster movie sources "Alien" (1979) and "Predator" (1987) as well as earlier collision stories, a classic sci-fi theme going way back for example to "When Worlds Collide" (1951). The spaceship, where they still use floppy disks in the control room, looks early 80s rather than mid 90s; even for a TV production the effects are quite embarassing. So are the characters, because they leave tons of powerful explosives in the crates while trying to hit the monster with a pickaxe. The predictable story may be OK to watch once, but you won't remember it next week.

I received this movie from a friend, claiming that it was a great movie I couldn't afford to miss. I asked him what it was about, and he said the story involved rock aliens, which immediately attracted my interest. After watching it, I thought the movie was average in every aspect, but leaning more towards the 'bad' side.

The movie is about a huge asteroid heading towards good ol' Earth, and (not to the viewer's surprise) people are sent up in a space ship to drill the asteroid to pieces. The spaceship "Galileo's Child" is a cheap piece of plastic, which they have projected onto the Windows 95 Starfield screensaver to create the flight-through-space scenes. That's the way it looks like. Aboard the ship are the typical bad ass "space pirates" plus a "misunderstood" scientist played by Caroline Barclay. They land on the red asteroid (which looks like a floating meatball) and start drilling away. With big drills. There is no logic in this, however.

This movie is set in the far future, so why not have automated drills, so they don't need to spend money on oxygen canisters etc. "Because then there'd be no killing scenes." Oh boy.

But hell is set loose when on the 3rd day (I think), the guys stumble across a grave filled with artifacts and other styrofoam crap. Of course, everybody (except the 'cool' scientist) goes nuts and start stealing the valuable alien plastic, but OH NO, the ancient guard of the stone grave is resurrected, to protect the grave from Zzzzz...

I won't tell you about the rest, but it is all so predictable. Most of the scenes are blatantly "ALIEN" rip-offs, and it all happens so slooowly, that the scenes get boring. There's only one good kill scene, and that's where one of the bad asses gets a drill through her head. Slowly, too - but painful. The alien itself looks like a walking piece of styrofoam rock. And it looks happy the whole time.

Even though it has it's extremely bad moments, the movie is enjoyable at times. The actors are complete crap, so you'll love it when they die. DIE.

Overall: 4/10

A "renegade moon" called Galileo's Child is headed for Earth. A drilling team is sent to create tunnels to be used as propulsion channels for a nuclear detonation that is to divert the moon from its collision course. That in itself is a rough job, but add to that one very angry awakened-from-hibernation alien, and you get an entertaining film containing cool makeup effects and good character development. A good bet for a relaxing night of no-brainer cinema.

(sounds a little like two other recent movie plots huh? - this was done two years earlier and to better end than one of them - so who copied who?)

Its cheap. The effects, the actors, everything on low budget. However, the script and direction are is quite good - compared to Michael Bay's Armageddon, which is extremely lame and boring once you leave out all the expensive effects and high-pay actors. Heck, it is even _with_ them, if your mind happens to wake up during the show. In contrast, this movie is original (in parts), it's refreshing low on pathos, and by far less expensive in production. I'd chose it over Armageddon anytime.

The alien sidestory is obvious, and OK. I hope director and writer Mr. Tunicliffe, whose other works are primarily in the special make-up department, will find time to hone his directing and writing abilities. There's potential, but he needs training.

Not bad for his first script and direction! 6/10, especially in comparison with Armageddon