Moon 44 (1990) User Reviews

Very watchable blue collar SF

[blubb06 · 6/10 · 31 January 2009]

If "Moon 44" deserves to be remembered, it's for authentic atmosphere. It breathes 80's style SF realism, a cross between "Aliens" and "Blade Runner" -- did they pilfer Deckard's living room interior for their company headquarters scenes, by the way? Look closely...

It was Roland Emmerich's first genre movie before "Independence Day", and the two share the same flaws. Yes, it is full of stereotypes and the end is cheesy, by "B-movie" standards, but it also has some good drama and an interesting mix of characters. The real letdown is Michael Paré as the pretty face/mercenary hero -- a little more depth to his bleak and boring character might have improved the ratings. The main assets of the film are its visuals, they make for a totally believable outer space "mining" colony. This is a rather low budget production, but you don't see it. With some refinement to the story, and a few long shots and explosions more, it might have come out really good. This is one of those films that make you wonder, what if.

He knew what he was doing back then, too

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 5/10 · 26 May 2010]

No, I'm not really a "fan" of Emmerich. That wouldn't be the right word. And yes, his films tend to strain credulity so much that it risks breaking. But let's admit it... he makes good popcorn flicks(with the exception of 10,000 B.C., that was awful). They tend to be enjoyable, exciting and just plain fun. And this really is no exception; while he gets larger budgets and more attention today, he could certainly deliver back then, as well. This does have a big name... I mean, Alexander Kruemmel, that's plenty of letters. Just kidding; I'm referring to McDowell, of course. The acting ranges, though this does manage to make Paré appear almost charming. I loved seeing Brian Thompson again(two appearances in Charmed, minor role in The Terminator, and he's played Klingons; what he may lack in range, he attempts to make up for in muscle, cool to see), even if they gave him unflattering facial hair. The FX are great. Dialog is pretty good, humorous and can be fairly sharp. The sets are reminiscent of Alien, and quite nice. This has guts. There is commentary on the world. The tension is reasonably effective. Arguably, there is not a ton of action(with that said, what there is usually is well-done)... then again, it's 92 minutes sans credits. There is plenty of strong language, disturbing content and a little moderate violence in this. I recommend this to anyone looking for a quick, easy to get into, cheap sci-fi B-movie. 5/10

Cool beginning for Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin

[Agent10 · 6/10 · 10 May 2002]

Moon 44 is one of those little sci-fi films which really slipped through the cracks during the 1980s and early 90s. Sadly, these types of tales are nothing more than straight to video fodder with absolutely horrid acting, so this represents one of the last of the cool, dark sci-fi films. I was rather mesmerized the first time I watched this in 1992, and I thought it was better the second time around. This ranks as one of those dark films among the likes of Outland and Silent Running. Good show if I had seen any.

Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! - And On The Down Side...

[junk-monkey · 30 December 2006]

There is no reason on earth to watch this testosterone driven pile of pseudo homo-erotic horse cookies masquerading as an SF movie. The story could have been written on the back of a postage stamp (but is credited to have taken FOUR people to concoct). The visuals are totally derivative; take Alien, Outland, bits of Blade Runner, shove through blender. The acting is abysmal. Not even McDowell can summon up the effort to be interested in his lines and he can usually be counted on to have some fun with his roles.

If you do watch this movie after reading the trashing it gets on the IMDb there are some rewards to be got from it. It's one of those movies that lets you sit there and ask yourself questions like: What are the teenage whizz kid navigators actually FOR? All they do is say "Go faster!" or "Go up!" I mean if the muscle-bound ex-prisoner fighter pilots can't work out that crashing into canyon walls in a speeding helicopter is not a good idea then they are even thicker than they look (and boy do they look thick - physically as well as mentally. Where did these guys learn to fly? - The Charles Atlas Fight School of dynamic tension?).

As it turns out, these guys ARE as thick as two short planks because, having been told that their lives are in the hands of their teenage navigators they seem to think it's a good idea to anally rape one of them in the shower. Not clever.

Other questions you might like to ask yourself include why ALL the doors in this movie give off huge spurts of steam every time they open, or close. In fact, why does _everything_ in this movie give off great spurts of steam? Everywhere people go on the mining station steam shoots out at them from walls, doors, ceilings, and floor - even, unbelievably, the cockpit of a shuttle craft. They have steam lines in the cockpits of shuttle craft? Steam powered spaceships? Wow! Welcome to the future! In fact the only place where there is no steam to be seen is in the kitchens, the only place you would EXPECT to see it. It's that kind of dumb stupid movie. There must have been at least 3 guys on set whose only job was to fire off fire extinguishers at random - and stoke the smoke machine. There is an awful lot of smoke in this movie.

It also has that standard shot of space ship approaching planet. You know the one. Static peaceful planet swimming in space. Suddenly there is ominous music and from the side of the frame comes a metallic something which just keeps on going and going, getting bigger and bigger, a vast 3 mile long pile of plastic glued together to look like a spaceship, on and on it comes until the glowing bits at the back finally come into shot with a sound cue of jet enginey noises. Finally with this movie I worked out what has always bugged me about that shot. If the engines are blasting away like that it means the the ship is accelerating towards the planet. Surely anything having crossed interstellar space would be DEcelerating as it approached its destination. Standard operating procedure for that would mean that the ship should be approaching the planet arse first with its engines going - unless they were blasting out Suckions an as yet undiscovered form of anti-acceleratonic particle. Christ I was bored.

If for nothing else I will be grateful for this movie for being so vacant of anything worth watching or caring about that it gave me time to think that one out.

Worst Line: "I got fed up with talking to my French fries."

fine early B-movie Roland Emmerich

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 10 March 2018]

It's 2038. Earth's resources are depleted. Multinational corporations control far off mining operations in the outer zone. Moon 47 is attacked by robot fighters. With an expected attack on Moon 44, Galactic Mining sends in young tech nerd navigators to guide helicopter pilots. With no one for the dangerous piloting jobs, the company recruits willing prisoners. There is an issue with the situation and internal affairs is needed. The company offers the job to Felix Stone (Michael Paré) in exchange for cancelling his contract.

This is early B-movie Roland Emmerich. I remember watching some of this back in the day. It's got good miniatures but the action is limited filmmaking. Limited is the catch phrase for most of this movie. While I remember the conflict between navigators and pilots, the secret sabotage is forgettable. More than anything, the acting is B-level led by Michael Paré. They are perfectly fine for this solid B-movie. Perfectly fine B-movie defines everything aspect of this movie.

Easy to Watch Sci-Fi Pulp

[Tweetienator · 5/10 · 15 February 2022]

Moon 44 is for sure not a masterpiece but solid and fun space action of the B-movie category: some mercenaries defending a mine somewhere lost in space. Easy to consume pulp science fiction well produced on a small budget. Moon 44 and The Noah's Ark Principle are in my opinion the more interesting and entertaining movies than Mr. Emmerich's last big productions Moonfall or Midway.

Give it a miss...

[epsilon3 · 3/10 · 19 August 2003]

I'm suprised about the amount of positivity expressed towards this movie as it is quite poor. As a long standing SF fan I was looking forward to it, despite it's low budget and the fact that the director's subsequent movies have been less than satisfactory.

The good points: The special effects are reasonable (although not great) and the set designs are excellent (quite reminiscent of Alien.)

The bad points: Cliche after cliche hits you until you can't take it seriously. The handsome tough guy cop who smokes a cigarette out of the corner of his mouth. You'll hate this character unless you like one dimensional humourless carboard cut out stereotypes.

The muscle bound convicts who bully everyone else. IS this a prison for body builders or something?

The geeky computer wiz kids and their quirky humour. How we laughed.

The obvious 'good guy saves the day' ending.

Malcolm Mcdowell. Why does he take movies like this? Such a fine actor is wasted here.

The plot holes are too numerous to mention here but there are lots and lots - probably about 44.

There really isn't anything to like about this film apart from the average visuals.

I advise you to give this one a miss and pick up a very similar but far superiour movie called 'Outland' starring Sean Connery and directed by Peter Hyams.

A underrated classic B si-fi.

[stormruston · 7/10 · 7 July 2002]

I like to compare apples to apples,this is a B movie,so... compared to other B movies,this one is great.Michael Pare is almost always a very charismic actor,in this movie he is at the top of form,cool story,cool guy,and over the top acting(thats what makes a great B movie). Even my wife liked it.

So bad it's... weird?

[edwingnichtel · 2/10 · 27 February 2019]

Roland Emmerich doesn't make good movies. At his best he makes entertaining movies (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow), at his worst he makes extraordinarily bad movies. This movie falls into the latter catagory.

First, this movie comes from that brief period from 89-91, when every aspiring sci-fi movie maker was hiding their budget restrictions with darkly-lit sets, steam effects and claustrophobic field of view. And corridors - you can never have enough corridors with lots of PVC conduit.

Second, Roland Emmerich saw Alien, Blade Runner, Blue Thunder (yes helicopters) and Star Wars and decided it'd be a great idea to smash elements of each of these into his movie. Oh, and he saw RoboCop too, so he borrowed a bit from that movie also. He also likes prison rape, so he threw that in (yeah, really).

The result is a movie that makes zero sense. People, nowadays, confuse unexplained plot elements with plot holes, when plot holes are actually elements of a movie that make no sense and aren't reconcilable. This movie is the perfect example of Roland Emmerich at his most swiss cheesy, because the movie is so full of holes that virtually nothing makes any logical sense.

Why do the "heroes" fighter aircraft consist of helicopters in the same future where every other vehicle is powered by far more advanced technology? Why does everyone just allow the rape to occur? Why does everyone seem to be oblivious to what happened (including the victims best friend) when it's convenient in the moment (but not the next scene). The entire setup with the "navigators" makes absolutely no aeronautical sense and does nothing but convolute when is essentially a bare-bones story.

If reading the above paragraph makes you think this might be a terrible movie, you'd be correct. This is a truly dreadful, cliche ridden mess of awful dialog combined with some of the worst acting you'll ever see committed to film. Is it worth watching? If you like bad movies, yes it is, but you have to be quite the masochist to subject yourself to this steaming heap.

Good looking, OK, but some mostly forgivable flaws

[jayarava · 6/10 · 27 June 2009]

This is a stylish looking movie, with moody lighting and atmospheric industrial sets. The space ships are cool - though why the good guys only have helicopters is a puzzle. The characters are likable enough but some are out-of-the-box Hollywood cutouts. The actors are either almost famous, or look hauntingly like people who are - I spent a lot of time wondering if I had seen them before (I hadn't it turns out). The story is OK, however there are a few plot glitches, and at times the story line is a bit thin. There are no real surprises - and no moral ambiguity. The dialogue is OK but once or twice stinks so bad you'll cringe (it may have been an attempt at humour?). At least there are no sudden swerves into the horror genre, and no completely unexplainable plot twists (as in Sunshine for instance).

If you like sci-fi anyway you probably be forgiving enough to enjoy this. I got the DVD for £1 at Tescos so I feel I got my money's worth.

Awful. Simply awful.

[qwert-6 · 1/10 · 21 June 1999]

Really, really dreadful film combining the worst elements of teen movies, prison movies and low budget sci-fi. Special effects are dreadful, plot predictable and dull, characters moronic stereotypes. Avoid.

Undeservedly Slipped Through The Cracks!

[filmbuff1974 · 8/10 · 6 May 2008]

During the eighties I used to purchase those fantastic Variety and Hollywood Reporter film market editions that were stuffed with movie poster ads advertising the latest film projects in various stages of development from dozens of companies. Unfortunately they stopped producing those great issues by the mid nineties. Anyway, I saw the poster ad for "Moon 44" and the imagery evoked Robert Heinlein. I couldn't wait for this film to come out and it never did. Or the film was in limited release. So finally, I secured a copy of this film on VHS cassette and checked it out. Here is my review.

"Moon 44" is actually a good sci-fi flick. I won't go into the story because you can get that elsewhere on this site. The movie struck me as a cross between "Outland" and "Brubaker". I think what also struck me is how impressive the production design was. I really felt I was watching a mining station on some far off celestial body. The acting was good and especially from Michael Pare and Brian Thompson. It's a good sci-fi film that is definitely worth a look!

Not a bad try,Yes it's a cheap B movie ..but its easy viewing and enjoyable.

[adonis666 · 7/10 · 16 June 2005]

Not a bad try,Yes it's a cheap B movie ..but its easy viewing and enjoyable.Some so-called reviews on IMDb take themselves way too seriously and movies at that!, and had knocked down these kinda B movies. If your one of these annoying train-spotting IMDb reviewer. Then please do not watch this movie ,Just go a bury your heads in the sand, and tap together your little red shoes 'there's no place like home'. I'm sure that the wizard of oz ..would be more enjoyable for you anyway. Ratings

dated 90's graphics 7 out of 10 background music 7 out of 10 acting 6 out of 10 story line 5 out of 10 enjoyablity factor 8 out of 10.

Space junk.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 27 September 2014]

By 2038, the Earth's natural resources have been depleted; valuable minerals are now being mined on distant moons in the depths of space. With their mines repeatedly coming under attack from rival company Pyrite, Galactic Mining send a group of convicted criminals and computer whizz kids to Moon 44, to train as fighter pilots and navigators. Tough internal affairs cop Stone (Michael Paré) goes undercover with the prisoners to try and find out why the company's mining shuttles have been mysteriously disappearing.

Six years before he scored a massive worldwide hit with alien invasion blockbuster Independence Day, Roland Emmerich helmed Moon 44, an extremely lacklustre sci-fi thriller that saw the director desperately attempting to imbue his film with a sense of style by ripping off the look and feel of Ridley Scott's classics Alien and Bladerunner. However, some reasonable model effects, and an excess of fluorescent lighting, spurting steam vents, and slowly rotating ventilation fans do little to hide the fact that this is one hell of a dull film, with dreadful performances, terrible dialogue, unexciting action sequences, and characters that it's very difficult to give a damn about.

Interestingly, it was shortly after appearing in this film that Stephen Geoffreys, who plays Moon 44's drug-dealer Cookie, left mainstream cinema to carve out a career in gay porn, making one wonder whether he found appearing in that kind of film less embarrassing than being in really bad sci-fi flicks like this one.

Twinks From Space

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 19 March 2009]

It's 2038 the planet earth is out of national resources, but there's a whole asteroid belt of deserted, lifeless rocks from which all the world's resources can be drawn. But the planet earth has also split into various corporations instead of nations who are fighting for control of those asteroids. In fact one company is down to only one asteroid, the last stand will be made on Moon 44.

You know if you're expecting a serious study on earth's dwindling resources and what I personally think will eventually happen, the strip mining of dead worlds for resources, Moon 44 ain't the film for you. What we did get in between the giggles and the video game special effects was one of the great homo-erotic science fiction films of all time.

The defense craft are these helicopter type ships that only crazy people like prisoners will fly in exchange for commutation of sentence. They are navigated from the asteroid by these computer geek types. Pilot and navigator of necessity have to work together to fly these things. But the brawny prisoners and they are all brawny believe me have other ideas about bonding with these twinks from space.

Michael Pare is an internal affairs agent for the company going in undercover as a prisoner. Dean Devlin is the head twink, you don't really think he would be teamed with a hardened lifer did you?

Actors trained in the classics like Roscoe Lee Browne and Malcolm McDowell do the lines like they pearls from the Bard and they do it well. Might be some of the best acting these two gentlemen have ever done on screen.

We never see these villains, all we know is that they're not aliens just greedier humans than who Pare is working for. Or who is exactly working for who?

If you care to watch and get a few laughs, tune this monstrosity in.

good,but

[meow1984meow · 2 January 2004]

The film was interesting sci-fi fare. I felt for the characters in their pridicaments. Granted, it could have been much better, but it could have been worse to. I guess the biggest complaint that I have is that the DVD was released in the inferior format of full frame. I would like to have the opportunity to see the film in it's intended format so that I can get all the necessary information to determine if this is a better film than I think. Thus far all I have seen is the blur of the full frame destruction of the film. Come on Artisan, get with the program!

The movie mooned me!

[fmarkland32 · 2/10 · 1 August 2006]

Michael Pare stars as a soldier who infiltrates a group of prisoners used as pilots to find out who has been stealing shuttles and soon uncovers that the people in charge there are looking to destroy the base. Michael Pare to me has always been hit or miss so while I quite enjoyed the amusing antics of such stupid (yet fun) movies like Instant Justice and World Gone Wild, I was expecting a level of magical dumbness that would make one gleeful of it's absurdities. Turns out though that Moon 44 is a piece of dreary trash. The movie just moves with no conviction and the story is so hopelessly lethargic we just wait for the conclusion. Among the cast are Michael Pare, Malcom McDowell and Brian Thompson all look bored with the material. I of course identified with them because I myself was also bored with the material.

* out of 4-(Bad)

In space, no one can hear you yawn.

[Bezenby · 3/10 · 13 March 2013]

Not the sequel to Moon 43, as most folks would guess, but really a boring sci-fi flick set in the future, where rivals companies duke it out to control mineral sources in space. One such company keeps losing shuttles (Huge machines that mine for minerals) to a rival company, so they get the big idea of sending ex-cons to man Moon 44's defence system, which is run by a bunch of geeks. Additionally, the company send an internal affairs cop up there (as an ex-con) to find out exactly where some missing shuttles have gone up to, and therefore Moon 44 begins it's slow, soap opera like plot.

Your ex-cons (including Brian Thompson of Hired to Kill) don't sit well with the geeks (including that guy from 976-EVIL), and head of the station, Malcolm McDowell (of Cyborg 3: The Recycler) tries to mediate between them both. Our hero, Stone, seems to upset just about everybody and is first up to man the defence system, which seems to be a toy helicopter driven by Stone with remote help from his allotted geek. This is even more boring than it sounds, as we're subjected to really bad special effects involving toy helicopters flying around a canyon, and not much else. I'm not one to rag on bad special effects either, but there's really not much else going on except for the drama.

You've got the cons up against the geeks, not helped by one con botting one of the geeks against his will. You've got Brian Thompson versus Stone, and Stone versus Maclom McDowell and some Sargeant guy. Add to this that everything looks like the director really, really likes Ridley Scott and James Cameron (the interiors are all Blade Runner and Alien like), complete with evil corporation, and you've got a film with plenty of set up and no pay off. The bad guys, when they do appear, kind of look like Johnny Five if he'd turn to crack cocaine and flew off into space.

Moon 44 is a drag from start to finish and I was just waiting for it end, which it thankfully does without a single surprise. I can take bad effects and cheap sets, but the one thing I do not like in a film is nothing happening. For McDowell fans, he's here for about five minutes total and doesn't do much. This film chugs off donkeys for cash. Behind a skip in Shipley.

I've just realised that this was directed by a hot shot director! Well the guy that gave us Independence Day at least.

"What do you think this is? A limo?"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 27 September 2020]

There seems to be several films mixed up here; a mystery story, a science fiction story, a quirky teens story and a convicted prisoners story. Which means it doesn't really gel into a convincing whole. It looks great however, giving a gritty look to Moon 44 where most of the movie is set and with only a few drops of CGI. The physical effects look solid not lightweight like digital often does. In its favour it has Malcolm McDowell as the villain, not in it much but always welcome. And it has Lisa Eichhorn, nuff said. It also has Brian Thompson in a rare heroic role. His demise in the film packs an emotional punch. A film good to look at then but routine plot-wise.

The great Roscoe Lee Browne is also in it playing the company chairman but is strangely not given a credit.

Embarrassingly bad movie, on almost all levels

[pachl · 1/10 · 27 June 2013]

Most of the reviews of this movie came around the time it made its debut. Now it's a dozen years later... and this piece of trash sure hasn't aged well.

But even if this were opening day, this absolutely abysmal movie would still rank as one of the worst in history.

It starts out with some of the worst acting I've ever seen, people sitting around a conference table at a major corporation. I swear it looks like the director or producer just decided to cut costs and have his friends and family fill in for real actors. One can really appreciate good acting when one sees the complete opposite.

The worst, most ill-conceived character is the Sergeant aboard the space ship. His dialogue is contradictory nonsense. I couldn't believe my ears. It was stupefying. Maybe standards for movie making were more lax back then, but his was incomprehensible.

All the characters are cartoonish, the acting is horrendous, and the amateurish "plot" is just an embarrassment to anyone who loves good movies. This one insults our intelligence at every turn.

As you probably know, this movie is about the (grim) future when we need to exploit space for raw materials. One massive company is losing all their moon mining operations to pirates. Their cargo shuttles, full of raw materials, go missing. Therefore, they need to find out what's going on, or the company will lose everything.

That could be an interesting premise for a movie, but not the way it was done here. Every lame cliché was put to dutiful use, every cookie cutter character was used. Nothing worthy of our time or attention. This was paint by numbers, and sloppily done.

This is by no means some elitist review. I love movies of all sort. I wasn't looking for some intellectual "art house" film. This review is negative because the entire film, from start to finish, is just a horrid waste of our time.

60% Fortress, 30% Battlefield Earth, 10% Spaceballs

[banzaibill · 6/10 · 31 July 2003]

That about sums it up. Lots of cliches, low budget not-really-action-scenes, and typical not-real-ending solution ala the Fortress movies. What surprised me though, was finding out that it was made in 1990. That kind of makes it more impressive technically, as i thought it was a recent movie when i saw it, but still nothing memorable.

Another Charity-Shop Express

[screenman · 3/10 · 20 June 2009]

It's never a good sign when the DVD costs just £1 and comes in one of those very thin cases. Neither is it when there's just the bald title printed on the disc and there's no additional material. Still; we live in hope...

Well; what you see is what you get. Don't be fooled by Roland Emerich's name amongst the credits; this is truly a C-movie.

The plot goes something like this. Uninhabited worlds in deep space are being mined for minerals. The stuff is then taken away in shuttle-craft to planetary processing plants. This makes the shuttles extremely valuable and somebody is hijacking them. An undercover cop is sent to find out what's going on, by joining a prison-team at the next world most likely to be targeted. That's 'Moon 44'.

Like so many of these cheap (and not so cheap) movies, money seems to have been saved by not employing a lighting facility. And everything happens in an often barely discernible gloom - even indoors. The twilight never lifts from the beginning to end, making for an extremely dull and claustrophobic experience. Actors are almost all B or C-list and they are doomed to struggle with a script that might be politely described as lacking intelligence. Even the 'big catch' of an ageing Malcolm Macdowell from 'A Clockwork Orange' fame, fails to illuminate either the set or the script.

There's so many silly things going on as regards the plot that it sometimes appears as if children had drafted it. Macdowell's the boss/baddie on the moon, but we never know who he's working for. It's clearly not himself as there's a big battle-cruiser turns up to launch an attack on the moon. Where from? Who's in it? Where does it go? Who cares - clearly not Mr Emmerich. Criminals are sent as defence pilots. They fly helicopters along smoke-filled canyons. Why? why not gain altitude and be a helluva lot safer? Weapons systems are actually more primitive than those available today. Apaches (attack helicopters) employ 8 'Hellfire' guided missiles with a range of up to 5 miles. These defenders didn't engage the enemy within 1000 yards.

On top of all this, there's a testosterone-sodden bi-line about these violent scum-of-the-earth criminals (who are yet still exceptional enough to be qualified helicopter pilots) that makes 'Shawshank' seem like a holiday-camp. This is needlessly emphasised by a shower-scene rape. Ironically, the rapist chooses to rape his land-based navigator, the one man upon whom he will have to depend in the foggy valleys, and it never occurs to him that this geezer might take revenge. Yes.

Bought as a piece of cheap Friday-night throwaway hokum, it was in the charity shop by Saturday afternoon.

I personally like this movie

[dinupl · 8/10 · 6 October 2013]

I don't know why people who write reviews on this movie, are so grumpy!

This movie was made in 1990, it says it has action, it has action, also it says it's a thriller, it keeps the viewers attention and it's sci-fi, thinking it has a low budget, you should expecting to see an Iron Man 3 sci-fi, it has little special effects but it compensates with the talent of the actors that you don't find in our days.

I personally like this movie and I appreciated it, because it's an old one and a good one.

I really don't regret that I've seen it, I'm glad, Michael Paré is a good actor and his role attitude is fantastic.

I scored it a little higher 8 out of 10 i think is around 7.7 out of 10.

Decent

[yankeedoo · 7/10 · 30 January 2019]

Not one his best but def from top 20 movies of 80s

Rather dull

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 29 May 2019]

MOON 44 is a low budget science fiction film which mixes in bits and pieces of STAR WARS and TOP GUN to no good effect. The story is about a bunch of prisoners who are tasked with defending a remote moon base from bad guys. Among their number are B-movie action man Michael Pare and the hulking Brian Thompson, always a welcome presence. The film is notable for being an early work from German director Roland Emmerich, but seen today it's a rather boring kind of film. The human conflict is okay but the dark miniatures and interminable plotting sap any life it might have had in conception.