Starfire Mutiny (2002)

Too much of everything

A lot of fun.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Oh, sweet Mary! This movie is one shabby piece of work. Cheap production values, a script that couldn't have taken more than 45 minutes to write and direction and cinematography that's like a poor imitation of the old Buck Rogers TV show starring Gil Gerard.The story concerns a future Earth that's been turned into a desert wasteland by the disappearance of the ozone layer. Some indeterminate number of people was sent up into orbit in cryogenic suspension to wait until the proper moment when the planet could be restored. The space station Legacy, which appears to be manned by 6 whole people, is supposed to circle the Earth until there's a solar flare that can be used in some inexplicable way with the Hubble telescope to restore the ozone layer.Would-be dictator General Montgomery Swan (Douglas Arthurs) takes over Legacy, after he's broken out of prison by his right-hand woman Colonel Diana Briggs (Maureen LaVette). Now, Swan's prison was on Earth. It held many other prisoners and was staffed by several soldiers…so, it's clear that human beings can and do survive and live on the desolate planet. Why then go through the rigmarole of freezing people and shooting them into orbit? That's one of those questions you're not supposed to ask.Swan wants to replace the energy of the solar flare with a nuclear explosion that destroys the part of legacy with all the frozen folks, restoring the Earth and making him its supreme leader. How exactly would he become the supreme leader when his forces consist of a hard-faced woman and three thugs who are as much comic relief as military muscle? That's another one of those questions you're not supposed to ask.Opposing Swan and company are square-jawed space station commander Sam Talbot (Joe Lara), cryogenic technician and pool-playing horndog Ben Gunn (Julius Krajewski) and a small-time con woman (Elise Muller) who scammed her way on the station in place of the physicist leading the effort to fix the ozone layer. They're joined by a couple of unfrozen bimbos (portrayed by "actresses" who had to have done many unpleasant things with the fat and sweaty producers who demanded they be shoehorned into the film).Here's what you need to know about Starfire Mutiny. Some of the actresses go almost randomly topless, there are fight scenes so poorly choreographed they might as well be outtakes from the old Saturday morning TV show Bigfoot and Wild Boy, at many points the story is moving so sluggishly it's not clear if you're watching the actors in slow motion or normal speed, and Douglas Arthurs apparently started this production thinking he was going to be the cool bad guy in a worthwhile film only to realize as it went on that he was stuck in a huge piece of crap. You can literally see the moment on screen where Arthurs decided "Eff it! I'm not even going to try anymore."The bottom line of Starfire Mutiny is that it's about 2 steps below those Saturday night original movies you see on the Sy Fy channel. So, if you find fare like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus too challenging…this might be just the movie for you.

Horrible. I have seen some bad movies in my time, and this was surprisingly not the worst. The worst was a movie so bad, I wanted to burn it so nobody else would ever have to look at it again. This was... semi humorous at times, but a few of the facts that the box hides is that the ship is really a hollowed out asteroid (At least, I think it is, The horrible papermache' of the outside of the ship makes it look like some sort of asteroid) and its not a new planet, they are trying to restablize the earth. The guns are still atomic age guns (the guns of our time) and so are the clothes. I want a good space movie :-( Don't watch this. Its as bad as the sci-fi channel B-movies they are always showing.

I've seen bad movies, and let me tell you -- this movie is bad. Not Snakes on a Plane bad, not even the Benchwarmers bad. We're talking awful on par with Omega Code (remember that TBN movie?).I'm a science fiction freak, so I am usually pretty forgiving of implausible plot lines, hyperbolic characterizations, cheesy dialog and predictable resolution as longs as there are spaceships, explosions and hot geeks saving the day. But I suppose if we live in a universe of balance, the production of this movie was necessary. (I mean, Firefly/Serenity HAD to have a yin to its yang). But really, this movie should come with a warning. Something like: THIS MOVIE MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME VIEWERS, NAMELY ANYONE WHO ISN'T AN UNCOOPERATIVE PRISONER OF WAR.

In the future, Earth's atmosphere is screwed up and most of its inhabitants are cryogenically frozen aboard a giant spaceship in orbit. Only prison convicts and their guards are still on the planet. In a few years, a large solar flare is scheduled to erupt which via some cockamamie plan will be focused through the Hubble Space Telescope, routed through various satellites, and cause the atmosphere to be restored. Anyhow, some prison convicts escape and steal a shuttle, then hijack the big cryo-ship in orbit. They want to blow up one of the ship's reactors, focus that energy through the Hubble, and then thaw everyone out and rule over them on the restored planet. But they need the help of the ship's pilot to maneuver it into position, and also the manager of the cryogenics program to figure out the yield of the nuclear explosion. But the manager of the cryo program was lost during Earth's evacuation, and in her place there's a hot blond con-artist (Remember the blond chick from the movie Hammerhead? Okay, probably not). So she tries to convince the bad guys she's a physicist, even having a little lesbian scene with the lead bad girl (we don't get to see it, only a quick glimpse of the blonde's boobs afterwards).Anyhow, lots of running around and shooting. Unfortunately there's quite a bit of these two comic relief characters, having long (and boring) conversations about whether there will be girls in the cryo units, and whether they can have one, or maybe two. Funny music plays in the background. It really made me groan. Acting is pretty crummy overall, especially on the part of the bad guy and his female henchman. Not much in the way of T&A, just the 1 second of the lead actress' boobs and one of the minor characters (who I believe was Playmate of the month in the Checkoslovakian Playboy) topless for about 1/2 of a second. The female characters wear these interesting outfits, with pants that are see-thru when they bend over and black thongs underneath. That's about it.The plot is hopelessly convoluted and the ending is just as goofy as any I've ever seen. Overall, maybe good for a rent if you're really bored and a fan of (very) mildly titillating low budget sci-fi from Checkoslovakia.