Space Soldiers - DVD

Content: Desperately, Captain Jekel (Sean Patrick Flanery) hunts through the vastness of space to track down a mysterious device containing dangerous alien technology that Jekel absolutely does not want to see in the hands of his enemies. But his nemesis, the scavenger Wake (Roark Critchlow) of all people, who works with Jekel's ex Emerson (Louise Linton), has also set out to find the device and seems to be one crucial step ahead of Jekel. And other intergalactic mercenaries are also after the explosive alien technology. For Captain Jekel, it's clear that he must get his hands on the device at any cost. But are his motives really as noble as they first appear?

Space Soldiers is the feature debut of Travis Zariwny, who has previously worked primarily as a set designer or 2nd unit director on productions such as the amusing horror flick Behind the Mask. For his directorial debut, he tried his hand at a science fiction flick. This was a risky decision in that he only had a fairly small budget at his disposal. Since science fiction movies usually live from their special effects, a low budget production can easily look very cheap. But if the effects are right, it's easier to overlook a thin script or weak actors.

Zariwny's problem is that he has neither good effects nor a convincing script to offer. There are a few shots that look genuinely accomplished, and for which a large portion of the budget was apparently spent. Because other effects just look like they were copied out of an old 80s computer game. The director tries to make up for this with the sets. But also the sceneries of the inside of the spaceships do not seem particularly spectacular.

With a lot of good will, nevertheless, still something positive can be seen at the film. For one surprisingly gory scene in particular, which is extremely entertaining in its completely surprisingly over-the-top way, suggests a certain irony that also shines through in the acting of some of the cast. If one is thereby willing not to take the whole thing too seriously, some scenes then offer quite a solid entertainment value.

But on balance, unfortunately, there's no denying that Space Soldiers didn't turn out to be a particularly good movie. A slightly higher budget and especially a better script that doesn't rely so much on common clichés and flat dialogue might have made a solid B-movie out of the basic idea. As it is, however, the weaknesses are simply too great to be able to recommend this work to anyone else in good conscience. Only for genre fans who like it particularly trashy, perhaps just worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The technical implementation of the DVD leaves quite a positive impression. The image sharpness is on a high level and makes even in darker scenes many details well visible. The color scheme is rather reduced, but captures the undercooled atmosphere well. As for the sound, in addition to the very directionally mixed dialogue, there are also a few sporadic coherent surround effects to be heard, which provide a bit of dynamics in the tonal events. Good!

Extras: Unfortunately, the DVD has no extras to offer except for the trailer for the film.

Conclusion:Space Soldiers is a gritty sci-fi adventure that has some good moments to offer, but overall suffers from its arguably low budget. The effects at times look like they came from an 80's arcade game and are thus not even on the level of contemporary games. There are some nice effects shots here and there, but they don't appear often enough to raise the trash factor of the movie to a decent level. A few successful scenes, in which the actors can also score with a little self-irony, lift the entertainment value, but ultimately can not prevent that this feature film debut of director Travis Zariwny has turned out only very limited worth seeing.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp