Intergalactic Combat

Director: Ray Brady
Starring: Gordon Alexander, Elizabeth Tan
Production Budget: ~US$200,000
Running Time: 90 min
Released: 2006

By the same director as Boy Meets Girl but a very different movie, Intergalactic Combat is a movie that sounded great, but disappointed. It has an interesting, if rather juvenile premise. The Earth is invited to submit a team of warriors to an unarmed combat tournament against teams from other planets, with the losing planet destroyed, or something. However, not only do we not get see this intergalactic battle, we don't even get to see the world championships, just the selection trials for the UK team. Like the previously reviewed Dark Intruder, this is actually a T.V. pilot, although not funded by any T.V. station. The plan is for the first season of the series to feature the UK team travelling the world battling against other countries, with the second season concentrating on the interplanetary battle.

The CGI work is pretty basic and the dialogue is terrible, but after all, this is a dumb action film, and the action scenes are pretty well done. I'm not a huge fan of martial arts, unless it is being done by Jacky Chan, but Brady has obviously gotten a pretty decent bunch of fighters together, and the premise works to show off their skills. The characters are interesting enough (big black guy, former world champ coming out of retirement, oriental guy, young girl who learned to fight to get away from bully's, twin's; one good, one bad - that sort of thing) that kids could probably get into it. If made into a series, it would require a much bigger budget (Brady admitted as much at the screening), especially if they intend on having humans battling against CG aliens, which they do.

The main thing that bothered me about this movie was the following quote, taken from the IMDB summary, and featured in the Bloodbath programme.

"An action movie shot in real time that plays out like a shoot-em-up video game. Stunning camera work, complex and always moving. An un-relentless action film that will attract, through word of mouth, all those hooked on gaming on their PC's and drag them back into the cinema auditoriums." - bRAdY

I suppose there is nothing wrong with the director writing his own plot summary, and talking up his "stunning camera work", and the "un-relentless action", however, the phrase "plays out like a shoot-em-up video game" is just plain misleading. As any geek knows, shoot 'em up video games involve a single character or - more commonly - spaceship moving through various levels shooting things up. Intergalactic Combat's real time element involves cutting from character to character as they have battles with a variety of adversaries in different set locations. This is somewhat reminiscent of versus fighting games like Street Fighter II, but certainly bears no resemblance to any shoot 'em up. You need to get your terminology right, Ray! People (like me and the Comic Book Guy) are very particular about this kind of thing. I can assure you, no-one ever recovers from a "Worst. Episode. Ever" put-down, so don't risk it.

"There is no emoticon for what I am feeling!"

As a low-budget pilot for a children's television show in the vain of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, this works. As something I would ever want to see again in a million years, it doesn't.

$1/2