Some movies defy reviews.
Think "Zardoz." Think "Myra Breckinridge." Think of any time you've said, "What the hell planet is this movie from?" That's this movie.
The gorgeous location shooting, along with the grand adventure narrative, give the impression hack filmmaking house The Asylum's goal here was to evoke a John Milius' "Conan the Barbarian"-type epic.
What turned it to gold was the decision to populate the cast almost entirely with Thai midgets. And they fight giant spiders and battle cavemen who ride flying Komodo dragons. Because yeah. And all of this takes place, the beginning of the film instructs us, in "Indonesia, 12,000 years ago."
Shoehorned into the story are some dude from "Stargate SG-1" and every-man's-Asian-girlfriend-nightmare Bai Ling, because the movie needed star power and Bai Ling probably needed the money for bail or booze.
But they don't matter, because what this movie is really about is wildly overacting, violently gesticulating little people who have been dubbed, apparently, by the same people who dubbed all those "Godzilla" movies in the 1960s.
Folks, they're WONDERFUL. They chew through the scenery, barking their lines and flailing their arms like Ewok Shatners.
They turned what might have been an above-average adventure offering from The Asylum, like "Princess of Mars," into an astounding Munchkinland/Lord-of-the-Rings/tiny-chicks-in-the-box-from-"Mothra" mashup.
It's pure movie crystal meth. You know it's poison. You know it's rotting your brain. But you just can't resist it.
And despite the cavemen's obvious joke-store fang teeth, despite the second most poorly rendered digital woolly rhinoceros ever put on screen (the first being, of course, Zach Galifianakis), despite your wanting Bai Ling to just stop yapping and take her clothes off (she does neither), you'll watch it again. Then you'll rent it again. Then you'll buy the DVD. Then you'll start selling "Clash of the Empires" DVDs just to support your viewing habit.
This is your brain. This is your brain on overacting Thai midgets. Any questions?
Think "Zardoz." Think "Myra Breckinridge." Think of any time you've said, "What the hell planet is this movie from?" That's this movie.
The gorgeous location shooting, along with the grand adventure narrative, give the impression hack filmmaking house The Asylum's goal here was to evoke a John Milius' "Conan the Barbarian"-type epic.
What turned it to gold was the decision to populate the cast almost entirely with Thai midgets. And they fight giant spiders and battle cavemen who ride flying Komodo dragons. Because yeah. And all of this takes place, the beginning of the film instructs us, in "Indonesia, 12,000 years ago."
Shoehorned into the story are some dude from "Stargate SG-1" and every-man's-Asian-girlfriend-nightmare Bai Ling, because the movie needed star power and Bai Ling probably needed the money for bail or booze.
But they don't matter, because what this movie is really about is wildly overacting, violently gesticulating little people who have been dubbed, apparently, by the same people who dubbed all those "Godzilla" movies in the 1960s.
Folks, they're WONDERFUL. They chew through the scenery, barking their lines and flailing their arms like Ewok Shatners.
They turned what might have been an above-average adventure offering from The Asylum, like "Princess of Mars," into an astounding Munchkinland/Lord-of-the-Rings/tiny-chicks-in-the-box-from-"Mothra" mashup.
It's pure movie crystal meth. You know it's poison. You know it's rotting your brain. But you just can't resist it.
And despite the cavemen's obvious joke-store fang teeth, despite the second most poorly rendered digital woolly rhinoceros ever put on screen (the first being, of course, Zach Galifianakis), despite your wanting Bai Ling to just stop yapping and take her clothes off (she does neither), you'll watch it again. Then you'll rent it again. Then you'll buy the DVD. Then you'll start selling "Clash of the Empires" DVDs just to support your viewing habit.
This is your brain. This is your brain on overacting Thai midgets. Any questions?