I'd rather be trapped on a prison island than watch this movie again! 'Thanks' to a friend of mine and a group of people that run The Smithee Awards, I was subjected to this film. I say that even though all of the film choices- save for Project Terrible ones- are ultimately my choice. However, I love hypocrisy. Battlespace is the tale of a woman on an alien planet running for her life. Excuse me, it's the tale of a woman battling a corrupt planet. I mean, it's the tale of a woman in the future trying to stop the end of all existence. Oh wait- it's all three! Confused? You should be. The film is notable for it's sometimes-quite-cheap effects, a lack of dialog and a plot entrenched in unimportant back-story. Prepare yourself for the goofy action of...
We begin with some decent space action. The ships look decent enough, although the way its shot is too frantic to really enjoy it. Ultimately, a ship escapes from the fracas and lands on a planet. The ship contains a woman (Eve Connelly) in a military tank-top. Standard issue, I'm sure. She's not alone on the planet, however, as ships fly over the desert Dune-style. Who said that creativity is dead? She spends quite a bit of time just wandering around the desert. Finally, we get some action as a man attacks her. They proceed to use the 'wrist thingies' to give them random powers like super-speed (read: camera blur) and the like. It's like the fight over leadership from Assault Girls- only this one has more of a point! Our heroine runs away bravely, leaving us back with this...
We get even more desert wandering until our heroine battles a robot with a gun for a hand. I have a great Neil Young joke, but I'm afraid that it would be lost on everyone. In exchange, here is a Tokyo Gore Police one- at least the gun isn't his dick! After that sadly-brief fight, we get more wandering. After forty minutes of this, she finds a rocket plant and does the only natural thing- straps herself to it! No, really. She escapes the desert planet and goes to a city...somewhere. She shoots some people and runs some more. She gets a ship and flies into space. Unfortunately, she is taken out and blown to pieces. Apparently, however, we all have flash drives implanted in us that recount our life's events. The point of this: to set up the Third Act, of course.
We do some serious time-jumping to focus on our new heroine- the old heroine's daughter. She's been 'reliving' her mother's life, which is not important at all. In her time, the universe has about a day before it will explode. She gets visitors at her space station home (which is next to a sun that is randomly farting fire at her) & all seems well. They turn out to be bad, however, and they get 'schooled.' As she explains 'Don't mess with a 31st Century girl!' This whole thing also serves no purpose, you see, because the universe just blows up early. Her flash drive is launched into space, apparently setting up future tales of the character. You can't end with the universe blowing up and try to make it a happy ending! The End.
In space, nobody can hear you yawn. The plot(s) of this movie are just kind of dumb. I mean, what's the point of all this? We get walls and walls and text at the beginning. It tells us about the Konstrukt War (not a typo) and all sorts of nonsense. What actually happens? A lady gets marooned on a desert planet for a while, flies off and dies. After that, we jump ahead decades (at least) to a completely-unrelated plot! Why?!? Did you try to make the first film and find that you could only fill an hour with it, so you shoe-horned this crap into it? It would make sense, given that the only lead-in to the new character is her narration, which could easily have been added in later. If Peter Bogdonavich could dub in narration to the dub of a Russian film, anything is possible! I will say this- the movie is kind of amusing to watch. I wouldn't call it a 'fun' film, but those inclined to laugh at bad attempts at science-fiction could do worse. I'm looking at you, Recon 2020! I'll leave you with this image of the farting sun...
Next up, a musical anime from Japan. Even if you don't get the plot, there's at least a unique soundtrack. Stay tuned...
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