From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Clonehunter released in 2012.
Starring:
Ben Thomas, Angela Funk, and David Ian Lee
Directed by:
Andrew Bellware
Genre:
Sci-Fi
MPAA Rating:
R
Budget:
N/A
IMDb Rating is currently:
2.6
My Rating:
6.8
The Synopsis is:
A clonehunter is commissioned by an extremely rich planet owner who lost track of his clone.
*THE REST OF THE REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. *
Enjoyment:
I enjoyed this film a lot. Of course I just love a good planet hoping sci-fi movie, and I totally don’t mind that it’s not a perfect execution.
It’s a low budget sci-fi flick so that is what to expect. If you are a stickler for special effects, you’ve got to stay as far away as you can from these kind of films as you can. And I don’t expect a lot of people to like this kind of film because it is also taking lots of risks visually.
But for me, I liked it mostly for the guts of this story, the idea, and the ending. Somehow this combination worked for me.
Pacing:
At 1h 25min is ok but it runs a little slow at times, especially in the first two thirds of the film.
Story:
The story is pretty good.
In 2525 A.D., Gulliver is the owner of the planet Terra 6 and has illegally raised a sentient clone, Gulliver 9 to implant his brain inside of so he can live forever.
Gulliver 9 has gone rogue, taking over the planet and a clonehunter by the name of, Cain and his partner with a robotic arm, Rachel, are sent to Terra 6 to hunt him down for Gulliver.
The dialogue isn’t terrible. Sometimes it’s really good, and sometimes it’s a little cheesy. But I get the fact that the cheese was supposed to lighten the mood of the film. It worked most of the time.
I actually like the story and the surprises in the film. Lots of plot twists and lots of payoffs for things they set up. And if given that this was low budget, this script has a lot of potential.
The story has one flaw and that is the entire plot was unnecessary and I will tell you why when we get to the challenge portion of the review.
There is a “Sorry for the mess” Star Wars reference from Han Solo at the cantina.
And there is a Firestarter 1984 reference to pyrokinesis.
The film pays homage to Blade Runner, with it’s city views and the ongoing advertisement for plasticoat… “The best protection for acid rain money can buy.”
Challenge:
Simon Gulliver is a light hearted character with a bit of whimsy to his dark intentions. He is unethical and greedy.
Gulliver 9 is the younger splitting image of Simon Gulliver. He raises the stakes by putting the entire planet under siege. No one can leave and that creates a lot of tension because terra 6 is a very hostile environment. It has radioactive winds and constant acid rain.
He makes everyone on the planet his slave and he has the power to kill people that defy him without even being present.
The most formidable challenge here is Raglin.
He is working as Simon Gulliver’s security officer and the whole time he plays it very cool and laid back not even assisting the capture of Gulliver 9.
Cain even takes a note of how he could have used some help in collecting the clone with Raglins help.
You would think he would want to help them because the planet is going to be destroyed if they don’t get to Gulliver 9.
Raglin is not worried because he is the secret manipulator behind Gulliver 9 with desires to rule Terra 6 himself. He was one of Simon Gulliver’s clones that managed to escape and developed a pyrokinesis Gulliver 9.
He uses metal, specifically a ring, in order to burn his victims from the inside out. He’s pretty scary.
I absolutely love this villain. He pays a jerk from the beginning to the end.
But here is the thing… All of this…. The whole plot could have been avoided if he had just killed Simon Gulliver just as he ends up doing as soon as he gained his trust as a henchman.
There was no overarching reason to have the clonehunter in the story if gaining possession of Simon Gulliver’s wealth was all he wanted. So the motive, just doesn't work for me.
Empathy:
The good guys aren’t super likable. They are cool characters, but feel as if I am not really worried and concerned about them.
David Anderson Cain is the hero and used to work with Raglin at some point. But now there is bad blood. No reason given.
Cain is like a 1940s noir private eye with the same attitude and swag. He’s not really likable, but you don’t hate him either.
Rachel Dewinter is Cain’s sidekick and the film seems to focus on her more than even Cain. She has a pretty awful looking robotic hand, because she had her hand eaten off by some martian spider wolves. That robotic hand gives her a big physical advantage to get herself out of trouble when she needs it.
The beginning the film really captures the distrust and irritations between the two hunters. Toward the end, Cain begins to get more protective of her to the point of locking her in the ship so she is not in danger.
There is no romantic relationship here… strictly business and a growing fondness for each other.
If you are looking for the one character with the biggest arc it would be Althea, who starts out the film as a happy slave and then learns to fight back against her oppressors.
On the ship is a computerized 3d cat Naomi which is so cute and a very nice touch to the story. She is engineered for intelligence and also the Deus Ex Machina of the film.
Technical:
The film is from Pandora Machine Films. This is the first time I had ever seen one of their films.
I had the hardest time trying to figure out whether this film was released in 2009 or 2012? It was done in 2009, but probably got distributed in 2012. Some places even say 2015. There just isn’t a whole lot of information available on this movie.
The film lacked a lot of atmospheric sounds and foley which flattens the scenes. As well much of the music lacked a cinematic feel.
The lighting in this film is very creative. But what really hurt the visual look of using such lighting is the color grade and aspect ratio issues. I can see that they were trying to impart a specific style to the look of the film.
It didn’t quite work for me, but it was interesting. I applaud them for trying.
Unfortunately some of the images looked way too stretched out and blown out. Very hard to see or make out what action was happening.
It’s hard to view this disorienting stretched look without it hurting your eyes after a while.
The film has some interesting angles, lots of dutch angles and that may be a little much for some, but I liked them.
And also, I believe with the R rating many people who saw the film expected more violence and nudity. There's a bit of nudity in the film, but it could have been cut and made the story tighter and available to a wider audience.
There were moments when the camera lingered too long on a performance, and the action scenes were a little confusing to follow. Especially the chase scene in the middle of the film. I couldn’t really tell what was happening during it at all.
Some people have been saying around the internet that the guns are all toy guns and I think that this is pretty standard for micro budget productions.
The best of the technical aspects of this film are the practical sets. The interior of the spaceship especially looked amazing and very authentic. I really wanted more of that. And you could tell that there was a lot of work put into this film.
There is something about the way light hits an object that is real that the human eye just picks up on.
The film does have a slight Blade Runner design to Terra 6 which I always enjoyed. I really would have loved if it were actually miniatures and not CGI.
And although I know that there was lots of work put into designing and building the cgi backgrounds. Some of the atmosphere and actors laid on top of the images kind of downed it out and it was sometimes a hit or miss.
There are still quite a few amazing visuals that were unique and pretty awesome.
Performances:
The acting in this film is pretty good. Any parts with questionable performances really only happen because the camera stayed on the actors for too long or a line of awkward dialogue.
The casting of Simon Gulliver and Gulliver 9 is pretty great. They do seem as if they belong in the genetic pool and even act alike.
David Ian Lee kills it as Raglin! I really enjoyed watching him perform the character on screen.
And Angela Funk stands out to me in this film as she does make her lines really believable.
Best:
I really enjoyed the very beginning of the film as the ship is trying to land on Terra 6 and dealing with the defense grid.
The ending was really the very best part of the i enjoyed the most. I love the twists and surprises.
Wish List:
I wish the editing had been tighter with some of the dialogue and maybe some big score and atmospheric foley could have helped it along.
I wish the film had been left visually like the trailer, a bit more colorful. Here are some photos I found online of the film before the color grade and aspect ratio had been altered they looked great.
I wish we could have had some visual flashbacks about things that were talked about. I want to see Althea destroy Gulliver’ fleet of ships as well as those vicious spider wolves on Mars. Show don’t tell.
I also would have loved a different outfit for Rachel in the end instead of a sexy schoolgirl outfit. I am totally into women wearing sexy outfits just felt it was out of place and out of character. A few scenes earlier she seemed to be unhappy about having to dress in the sexy outfit earlier at the nightclub.
And ultimately I wish this was something made for YouTube, Vid.me or Vimeo because then it wouldn’t be judged so harshly and would have gotten more interest for the filmmakers and actors.
The Ending:
The ending is fun and full of plot twists and I enjoyed it alot. The best action really begins at the 55 minute mark.
Summary:
Gosh, darn, these guys are trying. It’s very difficult to make your own sci-fi movie, and some people say don’t even bother, if you don’t have the budget. But I don’t agree with that, because we would have never gotten as far as we are today in creating realistic films without the magic of low budget filmmaking.
Those experiments are what we need to advance visual storytelling.
There are still people out there that want to see other creative ideas than what is popular right now to breathe some life into the genre. And it’s nice to see some creators, doing their very best to bring a good story to life.
Viva la independent low budget sci-fi films! Give me more. I love them!
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it and this is Retro Nerd Girl signing off.
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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