Humanity's End

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• USA • 2008 • 87m •

• Directed by: Neil Johnson. • Starring: Jay Laisne, Rochelle Vallese, Cynthia Ickes, Will Tulin, Kari Nissena, Peta Johnson, Don Cardale, Joseph Darden, James Canino, Maria Olsen, Bruce Douglas, Jake Edinger, Todd Justin. • Music by: Nedy John Cross.

In the 29th century, humanity has been hunted down to a single survivor: starship captain Derasi Vorde. Pursued by genocidal aliens, Derasi and the crew of his ship must not only survive; they also need to protect a woman who could perpetuate the human race. To make things worse, Derasi discovers that both his ship and his shipmates may be more dangerous than they appear.

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1:54

Review:

I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's when Star Wars came out when everybody wanted more movies like that and for a while there was none around. Many of us still remember those B-Movies (and some times Z-Movies) productions that everybody all around the world was trying to create to jump on the success of George Lucas. It was the time of "Galaxina", "Battle Beyond the Stars", "The Humanoid", "Starchaser" and the brilliant "Starcrash" among many other obscure stuff. It was a time where there wasn't yet a new special effects movie opening every weekend and so people were going to all these alternatives trying to get more of the same atmosphere seen in Star Wars.

Now, i just discovered this "Humanity's End" the other day, and i thought i was in for a really, really bad catastrophe movie. The trailer seemed to have something appealing, but at the same time it made the movie look like much worse that actually is. In fact, the only thing real bad on "Humanity's End" it's the tittle!! What a lousy name for such a great little space adventure! Someone should rename this movie and release it again, because despite being an independent production with lots of flaws and an obvious lack of budget it manages to be one of the most fun and pure Space-Operas out there in the best Doc Smith 30's classic style made with modern a look.

It feels like an imaginative clone of Serenity with all the good fun in place mixed with something like the adventures of Han Solo's red-neck lost cousin with a touch of forbidden archeology themes mixed in it (Zacharia SitchinRichard HoaglandCoast to Coast Radio)and the fact is that everything works perfectly.

"Humanity's End" has a strange feel to it. Lots of "independent" CGI effects that feel like "video-game-plastic" all time but have an excellent graphic style and create a fantastic unique atmosphere through out the story, characters that are as much annoying as they are fun, lots of humor, surprising good and believable drama and a good share of little action scenes which are not very epic to look at but are always a joy to follow. The story is much more imaginative than i would ever expect it to be and i believe that if the movie had at least one hour more to properly develop everything "Humanity's End" could have been as good as the best in Firefly.

In 90 minutes everything seems rushed and the adventure ends extremely fast in an anti-climax that leaves the viewer wanting more. The bad guys have that GOD-like power, wiped out mankind but they're totally destroyed in such a simple way that it disappoints. Come on people... This is where the lack of budget in this movie was more evident. No money to create the epic space-opera battle people are expecting and that the story seems to spend all the movie setting up. But...that's OK.

It's OK, because surprisingly the characters are fun to watch, the dialogues are sometimes hilarious but in the next moment achieve some good little emotional moments and i was surprised to reach the end of this movie caring for those persons (even for the ship's computer). Nobody will ever win an Oscar for their acting here, but we can see the players really are having lots of fun with their characters, particularly "Han Solo's red-neck cousin" which is the lead hero.

To bad this was such a small movie and i would love to see more movies with this characters. Maybe George Lucas will sponsor a new movie as he and Rick McCallun get thanked by the creators of this movie in the end credits. I'm not saying that "Humanity's End" does not have all the flaws that other people who didn't liked the movie mention on their reviews. In my opinion they are not important if you are in a mood to see an old-school space-opera done with imagination. Just leave your brain outside and enjoy "Humanity's End" for what it is. A great little B-Movie space-opera with tons of flaws but lots of personality.

Probably the best ("bad-movie") space-opera i've seen since my all time favorite, the 1979 Italian star-wars clone, "Starcrash". In my opinion "Humanity's End" deserves 10 stars, for fun, atmosphere, being a pure space-opera with tons of personality (and cool sets)and for the courageous twist at the end. If you love Firefly, check it out and you might be surprised.

Review by Alcaminhante from the Internet Movie Database.