Starquest II (1997)

User Rating:

2.4/10   

Director:

Fred Gallo

Writer:

Fred Gallo (writer)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Shirtless Male Bondage | Torture | Alien Abduction | Sex

Cast

Adam Baldwin	...	Lee
Robert Englund	...	Father O'Neill
Duane Davis	...	Cpl. Charles Devon
Kate Rodger	...	Susan
Gretchen Palmer	...	Carrie
Jeannie Millar	...	Jenna
Jolie Jackunas	...	Cpl. Kelly
Jerry Trimble	...	Trit

Also Known As:

Galactic Odyssey (USA)
Mind Breakers (Australia) (cable TV title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, sexuality and language

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

USA:R

Company:

The Pacific Trust

Trivia:

The footage in the alien video at the beginning showing a man with his brain exposed and the close-up of a needle being pushed into a brain were borrowed from the film Brain Dead (1990).

A little better than reality TV...

The best thing about Starquest 2, or Galactic Odyssey, or whatever, was definitely the Ed Tomney soundtrack. I was intrigued by the appearance of Adam Baldwin, who made a lasting impression on me during his run on the classic "Firefly" TV series. Though the acting isn't too bad, nobody could have saved this film.

This is an extremely low budget sci-fi film with a lot more ambition than ability. This film is about a group of humans that wake up to find themselves aboard an alien spaceship monitored by video cameras which double as weapons, and being carted off to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose. They are arranged in opposite sex pairs (which might have given any intelligent primates some clue about the aliens' purpose, but never mind, there aren't any intelligent primates to be found). There is a lot of shouting, fighting and sex, and it appears that some of the humans are, in fact, aliens. No sense in continuing, the rest of the plot has to be seen to be disbelieved.

The basic premise is not bad, but the execution and the script are off-the-scale. There are too many continuity problems and absurdities to list.

More or less randomly interspersed with the main narrative are a series of war scenes, which were probably found on the cutting room floor, as they rarely seem to have anything to do with this film and only once show people who are actually in the film. I can just imagine how this happened

***

Bartender: Hey it could be worse. That film you're working on couldn't possibly be as bad as the one I was in.

Drunken Studio Exec: You were?

Bartneder: It was a kick-boxing movie and I had to fight a whole bunch of guys off for some reason - never did have much of a plot. they wanted me for my martial arts skills.

Drunken Studio Exec: Really? What was it called and when was it released?

Bartender: Oh I don't think they bothered with a title, it died in production. In fact, I have some of the original footage at home in my scrapbook. Want to check it out?

***

Unfortunately, the plot is too thin for a feature length film, and the creators decided to fill in the gaps with randomly occurring totally unnecessary sex scenes. The film would have been better as a single episode of a Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone. Even with the exceedingly low budget, most TV franchises could have done a better job with the special effects. There is nothing special about the effects in this one, except for their complete lack of quality.

It would be difficult to find a reason to recommend this, so I won't bother. I gave it a two because it's almost harmless, and therefore not as bad as a lot of what passes as entertainment these days.