Clonehunter (2012 Video) User Reviews

My first film review in years...... OMG!

[Beegeeay · 3/10 · 28 October 2010]

I had fond memories of the series of cheap, low-brow 80's-90's movies starring Tim Thomerson as future cop turned bounty hunter Jack Deth. The first film, Trancers from 1985, was genre defining to me as a young film fan, with Blade Runner at the top and Trancers at the bottom of the grime & crime sci-fi genre; reminiscent of the old black & white movie detective or private eye film noirs of the nineteen forties and fifties. Clonehunter's bounty hunter David Cain is no Jack Deth - no tricks, no one-liners, and not tough as old boots. Gumshoe Philip Marlowe would have wrapped this plot up in the first reel.

Upfront I should say that I still don't know WHY I watched this film to the end, unless to confirm my suspicions that Clonehunter was as bad as I believed. Yes, it was. I've seen better directed, scripted and acted B&W B-movies from the 1950's with better more realistic special effects than Clonehunter. The direction was passable, the editing made viewing feel very episodic in nature like a string of webisodes cut together, and the cinematography was a huge disappointment from start to finish.

In fact many of the serial webisodes that have been proliferating on the web in recent years, shot on shoestring budgets have managed to display almost Hollywood quality production values. Values that are sadly lacking in almost every respect, with regards to this film. It could have been filmed in a underground car park or a warehouse set using an old VHS consumer camcorder, edited in a teens bedroom at night under the bedclothes and still produced a better on-screen result. Straight to DVD bargain bin stamped all over it.

The problem with watching short sample files is sometimes the same as watching trailers, they lull you in believing the whole film will be as watchable. Trust me, avoid this film and watch something else. I gave it a 3 score as it was cheesy but not complete trash. I am going to find all the old Trancers movies and remember the good old days of my youth.

Ouch

[jellopuke · 2/10 · 9 November 2020]

I really wanted to like this as it was obviously made on the super cheap, but there's just too many strikes working against it. Repeated CG loops. Messy script Way too many tight shots to hide the lack of sets WAY too many lights pointed at the camera to hide the lack of sets. choppy editing and frame rate. They deserve all the credit in the world for the attempt, but the end products was just hard to take.

No improvement from Mr. Bellware

[dien · 3/10 · 16 August 2011]

It's way too easy to bash films like these - horrible wooden acting, lack of any emotions, no budget, high school level special effects, silly plot, and so on and so on. But it would be unfair to compare a film by Andrew Bellware to a big budget Hollywood production. It is clear what he was going for - to tell a sci-fi story and have fun while doing so. Even though he must have known that only hard core sci-fi fans would find some enjoyment in it.

But that is not my biggest complain. What bothers me the most is the fact that there has been no sign of improvement on Mr. Bellware's side. I mean, he's been making these films for several years now. I've only seen three of them, but they all look the same! Same lighting, camera work, I wouldn't be surprised if he even used the same set in all of them. A limited budget is one thing, but a lack of talent is something else. I have the impression Andrew Bellware has reached his artistic hight and all of his other movies will look the same. I'll watch his future work only to see if I was right.

By the way, what is with that fetish concerning redhead women? Any explanation?

Low-budget, but made with pride

[shroyerw-1 · 5/10 · 28 December 2010]

I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how easy & enjoyable this one was to watch. You can tell right away that it's relatively low-budget, but one thing that's also pretty clear to me at least is that the actors were clearly trying their best to do a good job. Even the actors who weren't all that great - they at least clearly took it seriously. I'd rather see a bad actor who is serious about at least trying to do a good job than a wonderful actor who couldn't give a fig -any- day. I was particularly impressed with the leading actress (the one with the robotic hand). She nuanced some parts of the script in such a way that if this is still a relatively "new" career for her, then I'd love to see her work in 20 years because with a bit of time & experience, I think she has "greatness" potential.

Visually speaking, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that this was someone's "Bladerunner"-inspired attempt at making a live action "comic book" style movie. The sets, the lighting, the colors and even the character poses were all things that would actually look fairly decent in comic book ink. The "Plasticoat" billboard ad on the side of a building was very much an homage to Bladerunner - the actress even seemed to give the same smile.

The characters were fairly formulaic, and certain scenes were as well, but overall the creators of this flick did manage to make it interesting and actually seemed to have a few of those "original ideas" which so seem to elude movie writers these days.

My favorite part of the entire movie was Naomi, the holographic cat - she's not all that prominent in any given scene, but she is ever-present (even if only off to the side) and is ultimately much more critical than she's ever given credit for. She was a nifty idea and perhaps the most well-done special effect of the entire film. Her movements and interaction with the other characters were all very detailed - her sounds, her motions as a cat and her flickerings as a holograph as well as her color - all were nuanced to a degree you wouldn't expect for a film with such a low budget. Whoever made that special effect clearly has a talent for finessing the believable from the non-existent quantum- binary froth of the CGI realms. ;-)

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it for family night -or- to folks who take their science fiction seriously enough to make a distinction between "science fiction" and "sci-fi" - this film is definitely "sci-fi" for those who understand the difference. :-) But it is a pretty cute story and isn't difficult at all to sit through if you don't try to expect too much from it.

Sure the budget is super low, but...

[Bmoviewatcher · 17 January 2011]

If you're a true Sci Fi fan, you've probably watched lower.

The acting is credible and the story worthwhile. I enjoyed this film for its bleak nature.

Interesting from start to the finish. The plot has depth and the acting is generally good. For a low budget flick the Blade Runner style atmosphere was well created, both in setting, and dialogue.

Embrace the low budget Sci Fi - you're always guaranteed no regurgitated Hollywood pap.

Clone Hunter is a very good science fiction thriller that holds up well. Simply put, a science fiction film made with more HEART than budget.

Worth watching.

I liked this movie

[ladybug2535 · 5/10 · 26 February 2015]

Yes, super low budget. The effects were reminiscent of 2D comics! But I liked the story a great deal. Yes, some of the characters were over the top and nonsensical, but it was obvious that the actors had a good time making this film and the acting itself was decent. I can't fault the players. The dialogue wasn't special, but it wasn't bad either. Overall the film was entertaining and had good continuity, decent storytelling and held together. That is far more than you usually get with low-budget sci-fi like this. Worth watching on a lazy Friday night with a group of friends and a tub of popcorn. Oh and it's somewhat kid friendly depending on how you feel about non-sexual nudity. No graphic violence (ray guns, grappling fights), no sex and I honestly don't even recall any swearing. One gratuitous non-sexual full frontal nude scene by the female character (getting dressed). Lasts about 20 seconds.

Worse than worst

[gj_r · 1/10 · 26 October 2010]

I never wrote a review before, but this movie sent me over the edge. Especially if they use WIRED telephones in the 26th century. So here's the deal.

The clone hunter is a middle-aged boring man that loses every fight he's getting himself into. His partner is a fine looking young woman who gets outsmarted by a 10 year old, gets drunk in a bar without noticing she gets the booze on purpose, gets her memory almost erased, and dresses like a Barbie doll in the second half of the movie.

The painfully embarrassing 3rd crew member aboard their spaceship is a holographic cat, that can pilot the ship if necessary. What were they thinking?? And that meowing bugger almost looks as good as a lost ghost from the good old Atari Pac-Man game. Need I write more ? The bad guys are as awfully visible as the "special effects".

Finally, all the action you'll get is you grabbing your remote control pressing the rewind or replay button, thinking "what the hell did I just miss?" The average episode of Blakes Seven or Star Trek was done better.

Or think about watching paint dry....

More cute than anything else.

[Joshua_Penczek · 3/10 · 30 September 2018]

We've heard of movies being so bad they're good, so bad they're bad, but here's a film that's so bad it's cute. That is all I can really say about Clonehunters; it's cute. Definelty a horrible movie, but cute.

The film is clearly low budget, impossible to any be any higher than a few grand. It's a sci-fi film, the kind that's filmed entirely in a poorly lit warehouse, the kind where every shot is in front of a cheap blue screen that makes the entire thing look like a bad high school broadcast class project, the kind where random downloadable graphics and doohickies run rampant in every scene because THE FUTURE! Anyone who knows bad movies knows the type.

Every aspect of this film is terrible, although it still isn't the worst I've ever seen. The writing is almost something to be admired; it's as if an 11-year-old watched Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, and Alphaville, and decided to make a script with every single crime-noir cliche in the book: a depressed hardened "badass" main character who drink, the double-crossing twist, a dark city, bad narration, and more, all there.Despite the paint-by-numbers banality of the script, I almost think the film could've been decent, or at least charming, had a competent director helmed it with a modest studio budget. Unfortunately as it is, the film is clueless, with a main protagonist who literally stands around and does nothing, and a tough female sidekick who is meant to bust societal sexism norms but then spends the second half of the movie dressed into sultry revealing lace for literally no reason.

The worst part about this film is the lightning. Every single scene assaults the audience with eye-straining spotlights and artificial oversaturation. I'm not sure why the director thought to light the movie this poorly; maybe he thought more spotlights and sun flares equivalated to more futuristic? Every shot in this film is bleached out and often completely out of focus due the camera unable to process all the light shining directly into it. Perhaps the saddest part about it all is that the behind-the-scenes blooper reel actually shows scenes with exponentially better cinematography than the actual movie, meaning most of this terrible lighting was intentionally added in post.

Speaking of the director and behind the scenes material, there is a director interview that is clearly a self-interview from the director himself, where even THAT is abysmally oversaturated with articifial threshold lighting. The director seems to take his film very seriously, asking himself philosophical questions about the art of filmmaking intended for young inspirational filmmakers who he hopes to be watching, and this egotism ruins the entire film for me.

At least this film is short.

Their reach exceed their grasp

[JoeB131 · 4/10 · 10 April 2020]

This was a movie that had some high ambitions and lacked the technical expertise to pull it off. The cheap sets, the sub-par actors, the garbage special effects that look like someone rendered them on his computer.

So you have the main characters, who are bounty hunters who hunt down clones. The clone of a Crime Boss has escaped and he's also a mutant who had pyrokinesis as a power. Or something. There's also a nude scene the only purpose of which is that the girl needed to change from one sexy outfit into another, except she really wasn't that sexy.

Some of the story elements were kind of interesting, and in the hands of better writers, might have gone somewhere. Not so much here.

Not so much tacky as low budget

[Jorgescarlisle · 6/10 · 4 January 2012]

If you, like I, turned to this movie expecting a tacky sci-fi story based solely on the title, you'll find yourself somewhat pleasantly disappointed. This film delivers a surprisingly good storyline, hampered largely by the low budget available for production. The low budget is particularly evident in the special effects, which demonstrate some creative problem solving to deliver the large number of effects required by the script.

The script could have used a bit more editing. While it does have a couple of holes in it, none are so gaping as the obvious one in the award winning "The Kings Speech," and these holes are largely compensated for by the occasional good line and unexpected plot twists. The same holds true for both the cinematography and editing as well.

While there is the occasional really interesting shot—such as the drunk/drugged shot, there are also a few really bad shots which should have been cut, or re-shot.

It's difficult to critique the actors' performance, or even that of the director for these reasons. Just about every scene left me feeling like they ended each filming session when they ran out of film for retakes—or that they only had enough for one or two takes.

But the storyline is a real saving grace for this film. I can't help but think that had they the resources available to the blockbuster films, that this film could have outperformed them at the box office.

A little tacky, yes. A little campy, yes. Check it out anyway, it's an interesting watch.

"Hey! You Broke My Robot!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 21 June 2021]

Dressed like Han Solo, and attempting to act like Rick Deckard, Cain (Ben Thomas) is the CLONEHUNTER. Unfortunately, he's more Gerald Ford than Harrison Ford.

He flies through space with his holographic cat, and his partner, Rachel (Angela Funk), encountering other uninteresting characters.

Cain is hired to hunt down a snarky, space hillbilly. Now, Cain and Rachel are in a race against time to... Oh, what's the use? This is awful!

Generally speaking, a movie full of cadaverous "acting", dip$h!t dialogue, not-so-special effects, tree-like characters, and a "plot" that's an amalgamation of stuff from other, actual movies, should be a schlock classic.

Not in this case.

Each scene thuds into the next like glaciers colliding. Conversations take place that are boring enough to cause brain blisters, resulting in full cerebral implosion! It's like listening to a conversation between several, semi-sentient loaves of bread!

A scene in an intergalactic saloon was most likely filmed in the back of the same thrift store that provided the costumes. The "sets" must have been constructed on some other world, since such ultra-bland minimalism isn't found here on Earth.

Obviously coerced, random street people stand in for the random street people in this mess.

Basically, someone watched STAR WARS and BLADE RUNNER, decided they were Ridley Lucas, and jumped right into this.

Lovers of cinematic misery rejoice! You've just hit the jackpot! All others had better steer clear of this super-sub-sludge...

Sci-fi set mixes cosplay fun.

[jmthinker-16976 · 6/10 · 16 November 2016]

This film show there is much more to come from the sci-fi genre but I don't feel comfortable about excessive numbers of fight scenes. The result is that all accomplishments of a physical and intellectual nature are hopelessly lucky. The Silver Screen (you got it) is broken in many places where we literally become the actors instead of the audience. I don't feel I know the woman who strips naked well enough for this scene however so am reminded how I am not going anywhere in this film myself, accept I am watching and not acting. So why am I allowed this close when the film makers quality is so obvious. The gamer becomes star feel is okay for me if that is what it is. It adds a plea to the audience to step up and shape up. So let's look again at some of the actors. Racheal de Winter (how I heard and spell it) steps into each new scene like she's earned it. A hologram plus more cat. The male lead is lucky to be alive, plucky and bold and irreverent. Villains, clones,conspiracy and social breakdown. There are small elements of hope in some cast members who survive on what scraps remain. I am reminded of friends and stereotypes, not one's I can revisit whole but lingering in the unsettling vision of a fractured world. A good location and noir setting that lacks integrated panorama to action scenes.