Sumuru (2003) Poster

(2003)

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3/10
One of the silliest pictures i ever seen.
breeder-128 July 2006
This movie was really bad. I mean really really bad. The scenes were like from a parody and special effect sucked a lot. And it was filmed in 2003!!! i think this was a great waste of time and money and Michael Shanks with his 'Shaggy from Scooby Doo' image just made me laugh. Never waste your time with this picture... I really don't know what the director was thinking after seeing the final cut of this movie but the fights were so unrealistic that it hurt my eyes to look on them. The 'latex cat women' fighters were like sheep just rolling around the scenes and looking frightened around like they had no clue what to do on the scene... I think this is a beautiful example of Bottom 100 picture.
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5/10
Michael Shanks. No seriously... Michael Shanks
simplerisbetter-16 November 2005
Warning: Spoilers
The reason... the ONLY reason I sat through this 2 hour dribble of a movie. The characters were silly, the dialog's were horrid(his sister dies in his arms and the kid complains he can't bring his dog with him... nuff said), the editing didn't make ANY sense. And don't get me started on the outfits. Cheesy second rate sci-fi movie that proves some people just have TOO much money.

But then again... Michael Shanks. The eyes, the arms (oooooh, the arms), the oh so sexy jazzy stubble that he actually makes it work! Amazing work, Well plaid mister Shanks. Now please, don't leave the Stargate Vancouver set again.
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4/10
average B movie
jeffsmee6 September 2019
As far as B-movies go, this is in the middle. I wasn't getting warm fuzzies during the opening crash/landing scene, graphics and simulated tension were horrible. It picked up in the middle and turned weak again at the end. I love how 900 year old spaceships just power on and fly with no issues. The overacting of Simona Williams (Taxan) was a little overkill, while Alexandra's character seemed a little more realistic. For a planet full of beautiful women, I little more skin might have helped moved this B-Grade up a little.
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Great B-movie fun!
Richildis13 May 2004
Sumuru was great fun. It was shot in South Africa and the cinematography makes great use of the exotic location. It feels very alien and strange and makes use of some sort of filter outdoors to make the atmosphere seem unearthly.

I was rather worried given the subject matter of a woman-ruled planet, generally such films manage to be very insulting to women but somehow Sumuru managed to avoid that cliche. The woman were portrayed as humans who had reacted as "humans" would to their situation, not as "women" who only reacted that way because they were female and thus were somehow lesser than men.

Sumuru is a low budget film that doesn't try to pretend it is anything else. They don't attract attention to that fact by attempting a lot of fancy special effects they couldn't afford to do right. There is just a tiny bit of cheesy but fun CGI, otherwise everything looks "lived in" and like it could actually exist. Sumuru also does not make the mistake of sinking into self-mockery but instead has humor, sincerity and commitment in the performances of it's actors.

This is especially true of Michael Shanks, who proves himself a more than capable leading man and raised the performances of everyone around him. They all just seemed to act better in scenes with him. I was very pleasantly suprised. His performance showed a deft touch that was both light and sincere. As the lead, a lot rested on his shoulders and he set just the right tone. Great comic timing but esp. effective and convincing in the quieter, more emotional scenes. His Adam Wade was sympathetic, handsome despite the odd facial hair and masculine but without any of the silly macho posturing typical of such roles. Here's to hoping he gets more opportunities to display his versatility in higher class films that will earn him more notice in the industry.

Alexandra Kamp as Sumuru, though clothed in costumes that could not have been comfortable in such terrain, came across as very regal but also approachable. Her Sumuru was curious and intelligent with the courage of her convictions but was not so stuck her ways she refused to see past them if they would harm her people. She's not the actor her leading man is but she portrayed her character's story arc quite effectively. Sumuru is very likeable Queen.

Another good performance was Terence Bridgett as Jake, Adam's friend and partner in this venture. I'd be love to see prequel about his and Adam's past adventures. He also had some rather odd hairstyling but he was funny and a good foil for Adam. He and the young boy Will developed a nice rapport as did Will and his older sister Dove. The actress who played Dove was pretty and also has a very good fight scene near the beginning of the film.

The villainess Taxan played by Simona Levin is played over the top but it very much fits the role. She chews the scenery entertainingly and seems to "hiss" her lines out in a manner fitting for her role.

If someone is looking for lighthearted but earnest b-movie entertainment--this is a good film in that vein.
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1/10
Gem among the worst pics ever!
ElizaRomualdez10 March 2004
What a production, what a waste of screen-time and money. Here is what some european so called producer think, of a scifi movie. Take former model, Alexandra Kamp, pair a with an US c-class actor and get one of film business most notorious producer Harry A. Towers. Towers then finds some obscure munich based prod. house, Tandem communication, Rola Bauer, and then mix it all up with no script whatsoever and you'll get "Sumuru" - a priceless gem among the worst movies ever done! Get a live people, and do something else, whatever you do, no movies please!! To top everything, producers went to South Africa for filming, what you see on screen is one giant sand hole, where the "action" takes place, between extremely bad actors and extremely bad fx that any film student would do better.
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4/10
By no means an impressive movie...
paul_haakonsen2 January 2021
While the 2003 movie "Sumuru" is by no means an outstanding movie, it actually is a watchable movie, if nothing else.

Granted, the storyline presented by writers Harry Alan Towers, Peter Jobin, Torsten Dewi and Sax Rohmer have elements of classic fantasy, laced with some light sci-fi elements. And of course it is topped off by a heap of scantily clad women and set in an Amazonian-like environment (Amazon as in the female warrior society, not the South American region, nor the online giant vendor). And while it does actually sound like it is a good combination for some geeky entertainment, the movie was actually not overly impressive.

The storyline was rather mundane and actually boring, and I managed to endure an hour of the ordeal, then I was tender to the core, good and ready to find something else to watch. And I did; I turned off the movie at that point, because I just didn't have the will or interest to watch any more of this.

Now, what did work in favor of "Sumuru" was the production value, for the most parts. I will say that the movie definitely had a good production and editing to it, and it felt like a wholehearted movie, where it could just as easily has come off as being a project made by young adults for young adults. I liked the costumes and the props, and the setting of the movie was actually good too.

The acting in the movie was adequate. With the movie's premise in mind, you know you are not in for a grand Shakespearian performance here, nor will you witness any amazing performances worthy of top notch awards.

While I searched this movie on IMDb, I saw that there were other - older - titles also bearing the name Sumuru in the title. I haven't seen those movie, so I have no idea what the connection is, or how the continuation of those movies is with this 2003 movie.

All in all, "Sumuru" was not a movie that provided the needed entertainment value, and it just succumbed to becoming too much of a low budget B-movie. My rating of the 2003 movie "Sumuru" settles on a mere four out of ten stars. I had initially settled on three stars, but the movie's overall production managed to lift up the movie a notch.
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3/10
Sumuru in space
hwg1957-102-26570414 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Another go at the Sax Rohmer character of Sumuru by the producer Harry Alan Towers. 'The Million Eyes of Sumuru' came out in 1967 and is completely different from this film. This Sumuru is a long, long way from the Sax Rohmer character and is bizarrely set in the future. A couple of fertile men, the last apparently in the universe, land on Sumuru's planet where she queens over lots of scantily women and a few enslaved men. You could write the rest of the film in your sleep.

It is not a good film. The acting by Alexandra Kamp as Sumuru is terrible and what can one say about Simona Williams as her rival Taxan? It is a gloriously bad performance and thus one to treasure. It tops over the top. Michael Shanks and Terence Bridgett as the visitors have nice hairstyles (did they have a hairdresser on board?) but are otherwise bland. There is an annoying child in it who learns how to pilot a 900 year old spacecraft surprisingly quickly and a gigantic badly rendered CGI snake which is poor by 2003 standards. Credit must go to Savanah who plays a dog called...dog and seems to be the only animal on the planet apart from the aforementioned snake. The dialogue is a hoot. Do amazonian queens on distant planets usually say, "Gotta go!"

Apart from the ceaseless amusement that Simona Williams' acting gives it is a boring film.
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1/10
No Redeeming Qualities Whatsoever
frenchmonkeys30 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I watched this out of curiosity. I enjoyed Stargate SG1 and I've watched many of the other TV shows and movies that the principal characters have worked on.

My expectations weren't high, so I was surprised to be so monstrously disappointed.

The acting throughout is appalling, and the script is worse.

Zero research into the bad science that is spouted throughout the movie, or into martial arts (which several cast members engage in throughout the movie, despite clearly having no martial arts training (baton twirling does not a warrior make)) training makes the already implausible plot even less credible. The same weapon (carried by Michael Shanks), when shot at the side of a mountain, causes extreme damage, but when shot indoors at the wall made of wicker, creates a small fireworks effect without damaging the wicker structure - OK, I suppose Michael Shanks fans will be sued to seeing that in Stargate SG1, where a staff weapon creates either a surface burn on a main character, or blasts a hole in a section of castle wall as required), but still... A bad CGI snake 'god' eats one of the faithful in the way a dog would eat - snakes just don't behave like that.

The basic premise of an amazonian warrior cult on a distant planet is silly at best. Matriarchal societies have always been based on a lack of understanding that men are required in the process of propagating the species - for instance, the Picts, who didn't figure out the role of men in sexual reproduction until the ninth century - at which time, the balance of power moved from the women to the men. They carry technological weapons and demonstrate some knowledge of science - particularly of medicine, so the idea that a matriarchal society could exist with this level of scientific knowledge is based purely on the original author's wet dream. Of course, the few references to stellar science made in this movie demonstrate that the author knew nothing about that either (except for a few keywords that he must have heard in other movies). Still, it could have been done better - like 'She' in 1965 for instance, which showed matriarchal society with a certain reverence, far more believably, and even after 45 years it seems fresher than this fetid exercise in stupidity. Marching a few women around in 'armour', pouting aggressively, and spitting out their lines like a kiddie looking for a fight in a nightclub ("Come on then! I'll do ya!" style), seems to be over-simplifying the complexities of a matriarchal culture.

The cultural references are so simple - 'all hail the snake mother' pretty much sums it all up. Even the tiniest hamlet shows more cultural variation.

There is nothing clever, thought-provoking, interesting, visually exciting, or remotely entertaining about this movie. The soundtrack is of similar quality.

I can only assume that the few, overly-charitable positive reviews this movie has received are from blinkered Michael Shanks fans who will give a thumbs up to anything he's involved in. Don't be fooled. Low budgets are not a reason for a film to fail - cheap B movies can be brilliant. This isn't one of them, and there's no reason to inflict this movie on yourself.
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3/10
Film School Movies are Better
jt-9728625 June 2022
Gorgeous women dressed as Roman Gladiators traipsing around a desert. Who footed the bill for this ?

Getting a Root Canal or a Colonoscopy without sedation is less painful than watching this epic fail.
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5/10
Undemanding g 2003-vintage C-movie
hindsonevansmike29 April 2022
An entertaining sub-Planet of Apes romp. Stunning sun-bleached scenery (South Africa apparently) sets the scene for a reverse Battle of the Sexes.

All very silly, harmless and a Happy ending with the best snake joke in a space movie. Best watched late at night after a good session down at the pub.
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8/10
Entertaining!
delenn-alderson212 February 2006
I enjoyed this movie. It was a little bit "Barbarella for Girls" (not complaining!!) but entertaining and given that the script was very tongue in cheek, well acted. The special effects were a little bit strained, on a smaller budget its better to not try so hard, the results can be better and they do look like they tried too hard in places. I wasn't sure about the female lead, but I suspect it was a difficult one to play, the bad "guy" was well done...its easier to play a baddie in sci-fi because you can ham it up, and this one does. In fact there are times when there is a lot of "hamming" from all directions, which makes the film amusing..I think this is the intention. The film doesn't take itself too seriously as a result which is what makes it so entertaining. Plus there were actually some plot twists and turns which is nice is a sci-fi movie. I managed to obtain this film from Germany...my main complaint is why is this not on general release?
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6/10
Satisfies the appetite for cheese
PeaceHeather14 May 2004
This movie is admittedly not the highest-budget, but what I like is that the producers know that, and refuse to take themselves too seriously. Maybe it would be better to say that the producers spent their money wisely, rather than throwing it into expensive, unnecessary effects.

Filmed in South Africa by a German company, the locations are terrific, the actors are from all over the world (Michael Shanks has a fun departure from "type" as an action hero, and pulls it off well), and unlike some "blockbusters" I've seen, this one actually has a plot. Admittedly, it's not something to examine too closely (or maybe you would -- it's fun to try and come with answers to "why are you wearing metal clothes in the desert?" among others!), but the one-liners are fun, the men are dashing, the women are regal, the actors all seem to have good chemistry on-screen, and it's got a big giant snake.

What more could you ask for when you're looking for light, fun sci-fi?
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Perfect B-Movie Romp
Dnorris-115 May 2004
While the SFX left a lot to be desired, I had a blast watching this movie. It was FUN. The acting by some of the women was sub-par, although each of the two female leads did much better in the their scenes when paired with Michael Shanks. I like the man who played, Jake, he was very human. Shanks did an excellent job, as always, and played his character with a light, amusing hand. The man can do comedy, too!

I rate a movie or show on how much I enjoyed watching it, and I give this one a 7. It was simply fun to watch, and nothing left me cringing. Okay, the 'hardly there' outfit the Snake Goddess was wearing was pretty cringe-worthy.
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10/10
Review
sbeat200015 May 2004
I would just like to say I enjoyed the movie! I enjoyed Michael Shanks who plays Adam Wade, he makes a very good leading man and seem to know how to do the scifi scenes so well :) Also enjoyed the Alexandra Kemp who played Sumuru thought she played the part well!

I would recommend this movie and have to friends and family that it is just a fun B-movie with some special effects that come off cheesy but all in all just an all around fun movie to watch!

I also enjoyed the actor who played jake carpenter, adams friend in the movie! Michael and him seem to play off each other well :)

So basically i would recommend this movie :) Thanks for Torsten for writing it :)
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10/10
Sumuru, fun and doesn't take itself seriously
jmasg114 May 2004
And neither should we. It's classic B movie stuff done with a lot of energy and tongue firmly in cheek.

Shanks is definite leading man stuff and should do more. Hot guy too, which doesn't hurt. What struck me most about his performance here is that he was so different from the lovely Dr. Jackson he portrays so well on Stargate. All in all the movie is time well spent if you go in knowing this isn't meant to be staid, serious sci-fi.

I predict this movie will eventually earn a place as a classic among such notables as Day the Earth Stood Still and The Fly. The difference being that this one set out to be what is is, the others just sort of fell into it.
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10/10
sumuru a winner
loopymowse16 December 2004
Warning: Spoilers
I do try to begin watching any movie with a neutral perspective, not to have any preconceived ideas before actually seeing it. In this case that was not quite possible, my mind already had a single focal point; Lead role character played by Mr Michael Shanks; I confess my ulterior motive for watching in particular was anticipating the most what kind of performance I would see from him. I thought the differences between Wade and Sumuru worked well, I believe they both wanted to see the good in the other because of their own desperate problems, and being so realistic in expectations yet unconsciously hopeful each determined how exactly they could benefit from allying with the other. This had to pay off in the end, ultimately for the fate of mankind, of course. The battle of wills was definitely a bonus to watch. Interaction on such strong levels makes for a more memorable movie, since we care about what will happen to the characters. I could foresee a continuation of their struggle against odds (very likely to encounter further enemies heading off into unknown part of space) as much as their somewhat volatile natures creating an interesting play in itself; the type of person both Wade and Sumuru are, 'happy ever after' just isn't part of either's mind; always preparing for the next fight, whether with the universe or each other. This adds an element of realism to a sci-fi setting. If there were going to be more done about this adventure I would have to watch, my curiosity wouldn't be satisfied until I found out what happened next to these two 'hero's.
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10/10
Thanks God for men!
rori6424 July 2006
Oh, come on... it's just a b-movie!!! Don't worry about this!!! But as b-movie is well done and Michael Shanks act very well and looks gorgeous!!! The perfect movie for a woman's lonely night:an easy story to follow,spectacular landscape and, above all, a beautiful man with an incredible perfect body, wonderful blue-eyes where lost itself and a delicious mouth made to be kissed!!! Am I crazy for Michael?? Well....maybe a little bit!!!!! Whatever... I really liked this film, for the reasons that I wrote above. Now I would like apology with all of you for my English, but I'm Italian and I don't know English very well and this is my first post, so , be patient!!
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10/10
A B-movie which is a lot of fun.
Starfox50014 May 2004
Sumuru was never meant to be a first class science fiction movie. It's meant to be fun and the producers didn't take themselves too serious. With that in mind when I watched the DVD I was surprised that it wasn't bad at all. I liked it a lot and unlike other movies will certainly watch it again. The SFX could have been better sometimes and why would women walk around in a desert in clothing like that? Overall they did good work with this and especially Michael Shanks did an excellent job with his acting.

If you want some deep meaning, serious drama, this one isn't for you. If you want to have fun, maybe with a few friends, get Sumuru, get out the popcorn and enjoy.
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8/10
This Movie is Fun!
ironaxe12 November 2020
B Rated movie? Yep. Good acting, sets and cinematography looked good!

Minimalist plot, but ok.
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