Within the Rock

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 meteor is heading for earth. A team is sent to the comet to drill into the middle of it and blow it up before is smashes into earth (sounds like Armageddon?).But then they have to fight for their lives when a monster that has been dead for many million years come to life. Think the movie is pretty well done for a b-movie except the space scenes they look just like when you have the "fly through space thing" on your computer.

Grade: 7 out of 10

I really can't say anything bad *or* good about this thing. Its characters are likable enough, it's capably produced and designed, and professional-looking (except for that cheesy monster suit). However, it has no originality, no ideas, and nothing you haven't seen in ALIEN, PREDATOR, ARMAGEDDON and/or OUTLAND. It's just another formula, cookie-cutter, "grimy corporate drones in deep space versus unstoppable monster" flick. Pretty much a waste of time.

I can't judge this film using normal reviewing techniques, because it's not a big budget, Armageddon type film that will comepletely blow you away. What it is is a mildley entertaining, fun-for-anyone-after-a-completely-undemanding-film-sort-of movie. Given millions of dollars and time, this would have been a spectacular, if completely un-original, dim-bulb film. But it's not. It was probably filmed over a month or less, for about a million dollars. For that, it's pretty damn good! It had a good script, with only one scene of bad dialogue towards the end (just think the worst, oldest cliche). Just goes to show that all you need is one talented person to start a film (I mean this films Writer/Director, who obviously knew what he was doing) and you'll end up with something respectable. 6/10 or ***/*****

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