Space Marines |
  • USA • 1996 • 95m •   • Directed by: John Weidner. • Starring: Billy Wirth, Cady Huffman, John Pyper-Ferguson, Edward Albert, Meg Foster, Blake Boyd, TJ Myers, Michael Bailey Smith, Ed Spila, Sherman Augustus, Bill Brochtrup, Kevin Page, James Shigeta. • Music by: Randy Miller.      A deadly space pirate steals a shipment of nuclear materials and takes a top-level official hostage. Unfortunately, the heroic Space Marines are barred from attempting a rescue mission. Undaunted, the elite soldiers become vigilantes, and set out to stop the intergalactic criminal on their own. Will they succeed?
|
Trailers:
| Length: | Languages: | Subtitles: |
Review:
As I said up top there, the rest of it is cliché-ridden tosh with little or nothing going for it. The plot (such as it is) is a war movie and has clean shaven Gung-Ho Marines blasting vast numbers of evil-looking, scruffy, unshaven bad-guys (sometimes in slow motion) and has just had SF element nailed onto it because... I dunno, maybe they got the SFX cheap.
As soon as the Rookie is teamed up with the Beloved Old Sargeant at the start of the movie you know that a. the BOS is going to be dead by the end of the reel and b. the Rookie will have redeemed himself with a selfless act of valour by the end on the film.
As soon as battle-hardened, sexy, young Marine is teamed up with innocent, Liberal, female diplomat (they obviously hate each other's guts on sight) you know that a. they will end up in bed and b. the innocent Liberal female diplomat will be blasting evil-looking, scruffy, unshaven bad guys by the end of the second act.
The film ends weirdly. It's a very anti-climactic ending after all the pyrotechnics and mayhem that leads up to it. It just stops. Rookie shoots Evil guy dead and manages to get himself killed as well - somehow - it's not very clear quite what happens. Then there is a quick Marine and Diplomat in bed moment. Then suddenly a shot that was obviously done as a gag on set. Credits. Bizarre.
So if you like watching men in uniform shoot scruffy biker types so stupid they stand up in plain sight while millions of people shoot at them This is the movie for you. Where do these megalomaniac villains get all their disposable goons from anyway? Is there some sort of Central Casting for Bad Guys. "Hi I'm a Megalamonic Villain set on Global Domination, I'd like to hire 200 idiots who can't shoot fish in a barrel please".
By the way. How is it in crap like this, bullets make big, messy holes in people, whereas grenades just toss them up in the air to do nice, graceful somersaults?
...and why are all spaceships fitted with an 'Auto Destruct' button - even freighters, as in this movie? Trucks don't have an auto destruct button, cars don't, planes don't - so why do spaceships? (Answers on a postcard please).
Review by junk-monkey from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database