Director: Christian Duguay
Writer: Dan O’Bannon, Migel Tejada-Flores (Screenplay) Philip K Dick (Short Story)
Starring: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin, Andrew Lauer, Charles Edwin Powell, Ron White, Michael Caloz
Plot: On a distant mining planet ravaged by a decade of war, scientists have created the perfect weapon: a blade-wielding, self-replicating race of killing devices known as Screamers designed for one purpose only — to hunt down and destroy all enemy life forms But man’s greatest weapon has continued to evolve without any human guidance, and now it has devised a new mission: to obliterate all life.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Nice Sci-Fi Idea
Story: Screamers starts after an inter planet war for control of a mining source when peace looks like it could be an option. Col Joe Hendricksson (Weller) is in charge off an outpost which is defended by creatures known a Screamers who receives a message about the peace talks.
Learning these potential talks are not true and his own alliance is planning a large-scale invasion on the mining planet Col Joe takes young soldier Ace (Lauer) along on a mission to discover the truth. On the journey the pair meet Becker (Dupuis) and Jessica (Rubin) who offer the truth about the increasing intelligence the Screamers are showing as they have become the true enemy on this planet.
Thoughts on Screamers
Characters/Performance – Col Joe Hendricksson is stationed on the planet waiting for the end of the war, he controls the people well and leads the mission for what could be his freedom as well as the people he is in charge off. Becker is the old-school soldier that believes he knows it all. Jessica is lone woman hoping to one day to return to Earth who joins the mission. Ace if the rookie who believes his training is more than what it seems.
Performance wise, Peter Weller is a good lead for the film as you would expect in the world of sci-fi. I do think the other main leads also all do a good job in their performance too.
Story – Looking into the story, we get a well built world where humans are now mining other planets for resources which has caused a war, but now that is over the weapons used to win the war are one of the greatest enemies to man. The twists come often through this story with the basics of it all coming off the simple, where are we going on the lets get to this place to solve the problem only to learn the bigger problem and need to return style of the film. everything works for the ideas being explained and can be enjoyed with the sci-fi fans.
Sci-Fi/Thriller – The sci-fi world created is all good and could easily be built into something much bigger.
Settings – The film is set on what is meant to be mining planet that has been at war, everything looks correct without being anything special.
Special Effects – The special effects are all good for the time even if certain moments can look like they might have aged in places.
Final Thoughts – I did enjoy this film, I liked how the story could build to something bigger and could easily be rebooted in the future to make for a much bigger idea for the sci-fi audience.
Overall: One for the sci-fi fans out there.
Rating
