Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident (2007)
Nomination Year: 2011
SYNOPSIS: To quote an IMDB reviewer, "this movie is like watching a paintball club playing out a scene from a Star Trek movie."
In the future, the Earth has been destroyed by the alien Ma'har (who have never been seen; presumably because the filmmakers can't afford them) and their lackeys, the alien Greys (who the filmmakers also can't afford, although unfortunately that doesn't stop them from being seen). All that remains of humanity is a small military force fighting to secure a safe refuge for humanity.
A Ma'har base has been found on a remote ice planet and a team of space marines is sent to investigate. Eventually. For the first twenty-five minutes of the movie, the space marines hang out at their base so that we can get to know them before they all die. This is a really good idea and way more character development than I would have expected from a movie of this quality. If only the writers had had the vaguest shred of talent. Here is the sum total of what I learned about the nine marines in the twenty-five minutes of pre-action character development: the leader is haunted by the men who have died under his command, one is a huge jerk who only thinks about sex and who we all hope will die first (alas, he doesn't), one is an android, two are sleeping together, and the other five -- oh, look, a comet!
Finally, the marines land on the ice planet, far from the Ma'har base. They hike across the planet, braving ice worms and storms, before finally, just as they reach the base, they get split up for no discernible reason. Some are captured by Greys, others by cyborgs (wait, where did the cyborgs come from???), and others are split into several groups wandering through the Ma'har base. The Greys experiment on their prisoners, while the cyborgs torture theirs, including both the captured marines and another prisoner who wasn't even on the mission and was last seen safely on the human command ship. The marines who aren't prisoners fight a bunch of cyborgs (presumably because they're cheaper than Greys) and a beholder, and eventually reunite, free the surviving prisoners, and blow up the base. Then the ice worms come.
In the future, the Earth has been destroyed by the alien Ma'har (who have never been seen; presumably because the filmmakers can't afford them) and their lackeys, the alien Greys (who the filmmakers also can't afford, although unfortunately that doesn't stop them from being seen). All that remains of humanity is a small military force fighting to secure a safe refuge for humanity.
A Ma'har base has been found on a remote ice planet and a team of space marines is sent to investigate. Eventually. For the first twenty-five minutes of the movie, the space marines hang out at their base so that we can get to know them before they all die. This is a really good idea and way more character development than I would have expected from a movie of this quality. If only the writers had had the vaguest shred of talent. Here is the sum total of what I learned about the nine marines in the twenty-five minutes of pre-action character development: the leader is haunted by the men who have died under his command, one is a huge jerk who only thinks about sex and who we all hope will die first (alas, he doesn't), one is an android, two are sleeping together, and the other five -- oh, look, a comet!
Finally, the marines land on the ice planet, far from the Ma'har base. They hike across the planet, braving ice worms and storms, before finally, just as they reach the base, they get split up for no discernible reason. Some are captured by Greys, others by cyborgs (wait, where did the cyborgs come from???), and others are split into several groups wandering through the Ma'har base. The Greys experiment on their prisoners, while the cyborgs torture theirs, including both the captured marines and another prisoner who wasn't even on the mission and was last seen safely on the human command ship. The marines who aren't prisoners fight a bunch of cyborgs (presumably because they're cheaper than Greys) and a beholder, and eventually reunite, free the surviving prisoners, and blow up the base. Then the ice worms come.
Greg Pearson
Inane Dialogue
Christian Viel
