Ice Planet (2001)

Memorable, crazy movie

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Recap: A military outpost from earth are attacked without warning by a mysterious and previously unknown enemy. The humans weapons are totally ineffective against this enemy and they must flee. Fortunately a disrespected scientist appears at the last moment picking up the refugees. During their flight they head out to a set of mysterious coordinates that might hold some answers to the attack. Suddenly they experience a jump and end up on an ice planet, way beyond all of known space.Comments: A bold attempt to make a space opera sci-fi movie, but it fails completely. The effects are not at all up to the task, but not everyone can have a big budget and the effects don't really annoy me. Not when the story is a complete mess and can only be regarded as an embarrassing failure. And with the script and story you can't blame on a little budget, a good story is a good story however the amount of money you put into it. And by the same token, no amount of money can save a poor story.The story is a incoherent mess. The best description I could give is that it feels like someone has mixed up the pieces of at least five different jigsaw puzzles and then pulls pieces by random. Different scenes after each other more often than not doesn't really connect to each other, it seems like something totally unexplainable or unmotivated seems to happen in some vain attempt to connect them. And in some cases they director simply seem to give up and fades to black, completely resets the story and starts on another thread.There are numerous different substories, none of which are really resolved. And it is no small questions that each story puts forth, it is aliens, it is the attack, who is the enemy and why did they attack, it is aliens that appear to be able to shift between energy and matter and possess humans, and why do a mysterious tree/computer know ancient Sumerian? Not even the cast seem to be convinced or even aware of what they are acting, in some ways I feel for them. When the writer's poor imagination seem to fizzle some characters just stand around and scream, totally pointlessly. But I'm not even sure that is what annoys me most. It might be the snowboarding, equally lost, American natives that appears on the distant planet mid through the movie, and then just as quickly disappears again. It might be the Han Solo-rip off that completely fails or the energy-being (or whatever it is) that appears like the mother of all Deus Ex Machinas and defeats the enemy by screaming at them. Or it might be that after suffering through the incoherent mess it doesn't even end properly, just with a quote that so begun the Ice Planet Archives.What I try to say is that this was a miserable attempt of making a sci-fi movie. The effects and props where not bad, actually quite decent, but the story is just a little more comprehensive than a mad man's ramblings. Make sure you're getting paid to watch this.2/10

Yes, indeed, the acting is abominable and some of the characters are corny, and some of the takes take the speed out of the proceedings.... yes, this is all true, BUT:The handful of clues (hopefully not RED herrings) strewn throughout the movie gave me the hope that this one - at last - would be the dreamed SciFi movie to top all other movies in the field of such intriguing questions as: "Where does mankind come from?" And WHY? "are there others out there in the vast universe?" "Do we - both individually and as mankind - have a mission to complete, and - if so - what is it?" "will all questions mankind ever had be answered someday?"I would like to know more about Ice Planet and of course I have a burning question: "will this movie ever be followed up by a complete series?" If anyone knows more about it, please, answer.

This is obviously an attempt for a scifi series pilot. While the acting leaves a lot to be desired and the script is full of ideas that are neither explained or appealing, the movie does have its good parts. One of it is the way the aliens are perceived, as weird light and matter beings which was rather original, the fighter were also pretty cool. The second would be that it opens nice possibilities for the series. Wait, there is no third good thing :)OK, let's take this deeper: 1. Plot Really confusing. A rule in script creation states that all the things that you put in the script must be references for future scenes, else it's just a waste of time. There are a lot of things that have no explanation, they are just put there and I am sure as hell that they will not be used ever again, even in the series. Characters are not developed. At all! They are just there, doing silly things, completely disconnected from reality (theirs or ours). 2. Acting You may recognize actors playing secondary villains in Hollywood movies, and that says it all. But there's more: lots of European actors that nobody heard about, with terrible accents are found all over the place. Some of them die, but that doesn't help, there's lots more. While I can respect the lead's actor attempt for better casting, you can see that it failed especially when you notice that the series has veteran Michael Ironside planned for the part. 3. Sound and music First I thought it was from my head set, but no, from other users comments I understand that this is how the movie sounded for everybody. The only right word to describe it is "Whooshy". There are lots of things whooshing. From weapons and engines to doors and even voices (yes, there are alien controlled people in the film and yes they talk funny).All in all it felt like an anime film that somehow got drawn with real actors in it. "It's not me acting bad, I was drawn that way". Lol! Considering the load of crap that came my way lately disguised as scifi series, this is average and I do have hopes that it can get nice.

Even if this is not a perfect movie, it's packed with powerful ideas (isn't that what sci-fi is supposed to be) and some spectacular effects and Special FX locations. After an attack by an unknown alien entity on a series of human outposts in the solar system, a crew is thrown thru a time-space portal in an alien world where ancient alien conflicts set the agenda - what's cool (besides really great special FX battle scenes), is how haunting much of the film is, and how different the new world is.The acting isn't the greatest in all places although some of it is just fine. Wes Stdi seemed not to have a director -probably there could have been a better choice for the lead. Still, independent pictures that have ambition are the heart of an exciting time in movie-land. This film meets that test.Great concept, great originality.