MOVIE: Stranded, Sci-fi Christian Slater - Rated: G- as in Garbage

------------------------------------------

UPDATE January 6th, 2014.

I Now INSIST... people MUST... must watch this movie. You GOTTA. Get food. INVITE FRIENDS. Have a party. Watch this movie. Analyze it. Truly. This is a movie you will LOVE to Hate. (just brace yourself for Dain-Bramage) Honestly, it does MORE to incite creative juices to Criticize something than Anything I have watched... for Years.

"Amazing, truly Amazing... Leeeeeee Bad"

[ quote Me in your own reviews- please , please, quote me... ]

now... WHERE are my meds?

------------------------------------------

Stranded, with Christian Slater, was entirely horrible. People usually say things like, "Well, there's 84 minutes of my life I will never get back." Why? Because, with the movie, "Stranded" -only the DVD Cover was good.

And, as far as the DVD cover goes? There is no scene even remotely resembling the cover art. At one point ONE of the people attempt going out in a suit, but nowhere is there a scene with 3 people on the surface of the moon and at no point are there 2 people suited up... and in the vacuum of space.

So, even the DVD cover is only WISHFUL THINKING towards the movie... Yes, even the DVD cover ... is a horrid Lie.

Stranded is SO BAD... that it does not steal 84 (useful) minutes from your adulthood. It goes to the trouble of going BACK IN TIME... and stealing 84 minutes of your innocent childhood.

Listen folks, I do actually enjoy the "B" movies that are out there. And there are some "good" ("bad") B-movies. Perhaps I should list a few of those also. But right here and right now? I just got up out of my chair from viewing one of the worst "ode's" to Sci-Fi, I have ever been spectator to.

Go ahead, watch it for yourself, if you've got nothing better to do. Let me know what you think. I bet if you could rinse your EYES (and brain) like you can your mouth with mouthwash.... you'd "Wash" your memory of this movie. ... if you COULD. It sux - that badly- yes it does.

The movie "Stranded", with Christian Slater? Was Not good. No, not "good", at all. It was a low-budget movie, obviously, having only four people on one set, through the greater majority of the poorly plotted story. Low-budget is not necessarily synonymous with "entirely-bad". I DO actually appreciate a "good" "B"-movie. But, even sadder, I think "Stranded", was a serious attempt to produce a decent movie. And- Failed as miserably in that attempt as a slug attempting a 10 foot high jump. I swear that if I had the "Producers Chair", I could have done better with everything myself, from re-writing plot, choreographing the "action", (lame- at best), to consulting on the science and technology for the back-story. I'm sorry, it is TRUE... Gentlemen? "Writer"? Mr. "Producer"? .... CALL ME.... call Me, BEFORE you make your Next movie.

I can HELP You. Honestly. I CAN. Let me help with your next movie. 75bucks-a-day. Just gimme 75bucks-a-day. Do not do "this" to "us"... again.

Here...

Mr. Slug. BEFORE you even ATTEMPT the 10-foot high jump? There is a mud puddle over "here". Come HERE. Get INTO the puddle. Stay there... till DEAD. That's how likely you are to come even CLOSE... to getting off the ground... in your "jump".

Mommy? ... Make it STOP. It HURTS.

That's how "bad". And how ......FFFFfffffar from the "goal" it is.

The movie is set on the Moon, at an indeterminate (but near) future, and revolves around 4 characters. (low budget movies have to stay WITHIN budget somehow... so, they limit costs by trapping 4 actors on one set... right?) 4 characters speaking into broken equipment without the benefit of even a vocal-communication reply-track. Not even a SECOND set of an Earth-based comm-center where there's at least a 30 second shot of people acting puzzled over the ABSENCE of communications from the moon base? From this omission, one can only assume that Earth, does not CARE... if this "moon base" is off-line or not...

*sigh*

I guess that... in this "near future", there are so MANY "moon bases", that this one was overlooked, when it fell out of communication with Earth.

I need a new barf-bag. I'm STILL suffering from space-sickness. Forgive me.

It actually roughly follows the entire plot of Alien. But only roughly. The central theme of the movie is an Alien which spawns itself, via human infection. ( What an "original" concept, eh? )

Special effects? Gel, goo, makeup, and rockets that spewed smoke or steam (like they did in the 1950's black and white movies). And the "monster"? More gel and goo, smeared liberally all over the female who is painfully giving "birth" to the alien, hemorrhaging horribly (yet surviving the birth) and now she is covered with a mix of fake blood, gel, and goo, and then a baby-prop appears, smeared in gel and goo, (and fake blood of course) and then the "baby" was given a horribly gaping mouth and fangs, (dripping goo and fake blood)... As this Alien "monster" grows, guess what! It now, suddenly morphs, assuming the form of... ONE OF THE ORIGINAL FOUR ACTORS! (smeared in gel, goo and fake blood) [Must keep the $1000 "special-effects" budget within limits after all- Stan Winston ~MUST~ be spinning in his grave!]. Maintaining only 4 actors on that single set. 4 actors and one baby-prop. As well as, the several gallons of corn-syrup, and silicone gel. And fish guts, I guess. Oh! And the fake blood. Don't forget the prodigious use of fake blood...

You know... ONE of this movies co-creators lists himself as having "worked", on several of George Lucas's Star Wars "sets and movies"! ...And I am sure that Stan-Winston is ssssssSPINNING in his grave because of the mere Existence of this movie!

Yeah, SURE he worked on "George Lucas's sets"... I am assuming he "worked"... by delivering sandwiches.

I have ...WATCHED... "George Lucas's Star Wars movies" and I feel confident I could "produce" a better Sci-Fi movie than these brain-damaged simians can.

During the movie, right after the Alien "birth", you witness an implausible and amazing thing. You see, the female who births the Alien, wakes in a puddle of blood and goo, the "baby" is missing, she is no longer bulging. She is kept strapped down, and she does pass out after the "birth". She soon wakes to find this "Alien" suckling (biting?) her breast... She screams, drawing all males into the room. One of the male actors is bitten by the newborn "Alien", and manages to die from this bite. At least I THINK he is dying from this bite. Yet, the female who hemorrhaged profusely from her "childbearing", manages, to dance about the set just fine, after the birth. And soon she is in perfectly good health, assisting with hunting the alien (who looks just LIKE the actor who dies) her appearance and health, magically and completely restored, and having absolutely no reaction to the foreign body of the "Alien" having resided INSIDE her body GROWING There, for about 24 hours... yet, after the alien baby "nibbles" one of the actors, he has a "reaction" and dies soon. In all honesty, his "death-scene" is not shown. He's alive one moment, and dead in his room the next. With a spray of "blood" (gel and goo) around him, spattering the corner he's laying in. The implication is that the Alien may have done it, but, honestly? Did he commit suicide? Or, die first and THEN was mauled by the alien? ... I guess, from the movie he was "mauled", but that scene was not explicitly shown, and ... I may have been watching flies mate during that scene. I guess I missed it, YOU will have to watch it and tell me what you think of the fine acting yourself.

I figure this was to keep the "workload" of the actors approximately equal. After all, if one of those actors is both monster AND human, he'd be doing "double-duty" as monster and as human, so he probably should be paid double what the others get, eh?

Perhaps all the actors were sharing the Two-hundred-dollar acting budget, splitting that whopping two-hundred-bucks equally? Fifty bucks each, perhaps?

"Back Story"? Did this movie even have a "Back-Story"? If it did, I am sure it was composed by an 8-year old, scribbling with a crayon, under a blanket-tent, which had been pitched over a clothes-line somewhere, in some back-woods area of a mid-western state.

And- WHO... would spend money on making this phenomenal tragedy, I mean to say, this FINE fine piece of Sci-Fi?

I personally believe that the Center for Disease Control needs to issue a warning against simply viewing this movie. It'll melt the brain of any intelligent Sci-Fi fan. Sorry. But that IS the truth of the matter.

And, only someone with a Pentium-I for a brain would think this plot had any merit. I think A High School- movie producer could do better. Slater must have been desperate to earn the 50 dollars he (obviously) got for this one.

The "writing" for this movie is so entirely amateurish, and lame, that anyone with ANY kind of a taste for real Science Fiction, or Technology-based movies, would be insulted. As I watched the unfolding, "Horror Show", (for it WAS a true horror to watch...) The actors mutilated one sci-fi situation after another, and played stupid, slow, or weak- with every opportunity.

The ONLY rationalization for such a bad script, and a bad movie (near as I can tell) is IF, this were a family funded movie and someones rich daddy gave the producer enough cash to make it... just to watch it crash and burn... then to LAUGH at the squirming discomfort, of the movie watchers, through hidden observation camera's. This MUST have been a Joke from the outset, and was produced precisely to cause discomfort in the intelligent movie-watcher segment of the population...

Now, having said all the above, I will admit I have not at all tried to look up who made this movie. I did as I truly indicated here. Got up out of my chair immediately after viewing this movie, and wrote this, lickity-split. Precisely because this movie was stupendously bad. After posting this article I will then, GO... and LOOK, and try to find the who, what, and why, that are behind the creation of this visual torture which claims to be Science Fiction. I will probably update in the notes, if I find anything of merit.

Even the trailer contains hints that pertain to the stupidity within the movie. In the segment showing what looks like exploding guts? IT IS... "exploding guts", in the scene pertinent to the "organic explosion" which is shown here, it's one of the crew members trapped in an airlock by the (suddenly intelligent) creature that cannot even speak. And cannot know our technology, for some ODD reason this creature just knows how to operate technology... Any-Way... the very moment that the airlock is "decompressed", the crewman EXPLODES. And he explodes instantly. Nobody would EVER "explode" that way even if exposed to a hard vacuum. What would happen is the blood would boil through your tissues more slowly and you'd freeze solid pretty quickly. You would die, within a 2 or 4 minute period, most likely. But it is not INSTANT explosive destruction. Vacuum does not "work" that way.

As you watch the trailers, the chosen scenes are all mended together in a way that APPEARS to be a true blue "Action Movie". But it's truly a crying shame. The majority of the movie is "dead space", wasted time, repetition and bad plot. You'll see what I mean. Even Christian Slater cannot save it. Tho' I must admit, he IS a great character actor- Christian cannot "save" this movie. When you witness the thing as a (beautiful) "whole"? It kinda loses that "shine" which the trailers give it. These... are the GOOD parts. By way of contrast, if you do see something like the "Riddick" movies? They are not "Perfection" either, The movies of the "Riddick" series are most likely NOT going to win major awards. But they are at least GOOD at what they do. And they do "Action" at the very least. They are not intended to be icons of perfection, yet... the Riddick movies, are a FAR CRY better regarding entertainment value. Better than this sorry excuse of wasted movie editing. You see folks, these TRAILERS are truly beautifully made. I am saddened I cannot say the same for the movie itself.

By the time the movie was drawing towards it's close, I had my finger on the "Off" button. I honestly had no need what-so-ever, to waste more time in viewing it's conclusion- which was foregone. Whatever the conclusion was, I was sure there would be no point, and no "good feeling", no "triumph over challenge", or, any such positive end. In fact, I was also sure there would not even be a "Good" - "BAD" ending, as in, "All Humanity will Die"... as a dramatic finale. This movie had worked, and worked HARD, to actually devalue any point held in esteem by a Sci-Fi or Action-movie fan. I did not wish to see the end- since viewing the central part of the story was enough assurance that we (the viewers) were "in bad hands".

But then I hesitated- in the usual sense you do, while watching something you do not wish to see, or should not see, or are forced to see against your will. Such as torture of an actual living human, or a train wreck. I had "committed" to virtually the whole movie, so now- I "had"... to see how this piece of Movie-Doo-Doo, ended. I'd gone through four-fifths of this movie HOPING it would somehow get better, and I litterally had said "That's Enough", after -SOME- stupidly scripted-line, got up to shut it off... and then... hesitated, sighed with resignation that I had been "had", and flopped back into the chair to finish it. (ugh)

It did not disappoint.
Even the final line(s) of the movie (from Slater) were horrid. This was not Christian Slater's fault, he was merely doing his job, as the meat-prop, executing lines of plot, as printed. And I am sure even Christian was saying to himself, "Just give me my fifty dollars and let me out of this smelly, cramped and un-ventilated set."

The brutally truncated end of the movie felt like an arm being severed by Sam Raimi's dull Evil-Dead chain-saw, it was sudden, and the movie was "bad" all the way, beginning to end... it had zero enjoyable confrontation scenes, and then, the movie was simply ended, simply ended with such a terribly cliche scene, and line, that you honestly say to yourself....

"OH NO.... Are they actually PLANNING on a Part 2 ?"

* pause *

Yes, folks, it was THAT "Bad". In fact, it's SO BAD, that I now desire you to go see it and commiserate with me, Because now I have been "contaminated", ...much like those "spores" they talk about in this movie.

Folks, There are "A" Movies, and there are "B" movies, and in my own opinion, "B" movies can actually be good or have an entertainment value. A low-budget need not indicate the show is a complete loss. And sometimes yea, even the "badness" of a movie may make it entertaining, in a campy way. The original "Evil-Dead" movies by Sam Raimi were "Bad", but now, here he is, producing Dark-Man, Spider-Man, and etc. He's "World Class", and his original Evil Dead series is a cult classic as well as a show on Broadway. There was "magic" in his stereotypical "bad" movie productions. There was enough of a campy, approach, so that you also could laugh at this "bad" and or "cheap" production. To this day, I still enjoy watching Ashe [Bruce Campbell- old High-School chum of Sam Raimi], run-around the woods with a chain saw strapped to his arm.

And, just as in that older Raimi movie- You Too- will in fact, cut your own arm off, if you put this DVD into a machine to watch it then, noticing your hand becoming 'contaminated' as a result of contact with the DVD. You have been warned. And for this category of movie that simply totally SUCKS, at every level?

Call'em "Z" movies, or possibly "Rated-G"... (for Garbage) and this movie, is definitely Rated "G". Where "Rated-G".... ain't 'Good'. I suggest this movie be used as an example to aspiring students of film, for "How NOT to make a movie."

Just Right-Click on the picture at the top of this article, and SAVE that. 'cause it's as close as you are going to get on using the word "Good", for this movie. The cover art for the DVD case... is good. Christian Slater is good... The movie ... is BAAAaaaaaaaaddddddddDDDduhhhH

In fact, it will rot your brain.

Now excuse me, I must go shower. At least I can get the outside of myself clean. Blech.

update.... later in the day.

I am so SO entirely pleased to announce that my own (natural words) are entirely IDENTICAL to those of others "critiquing" this movie! Go to IMDB and see what they are saying about this horrid accident of film. I am sitting here giggling over the congruence of our feelings on this matter. I literally did get up and write this article without consulting a single individual or checking ANY other reviews. We ALL.... wish to jam our fingers down our throats and make ourselves vomit the memories this movie has given us.

it's ... "that" .... "Good". (LoL)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268573/reviews?ref_=tt_urv