EXILE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/3/09

 

For me, one of the most fun kinds of movies to watch are the ones in which an indie filmmaker with a little imagination and a passion for making movies scrapes a comparatively miniscule budget together and then goes for broke. One such filmmaker, Mike Conway, put his previous film THE AWAKENING together for less than $6,000, yet I watch it a lot more often than I do the MATRIX sequels.

His latest film, another sci-fi actioner entitled EXILE (2008), cost several times that amount yet the budget was still low enough to necessitate considerable ingenuity in lieu of wads of cash. Once again, Mike's very own backyard serves as a backlot, and I'm willing to bet most of those interiors were shot in his garage soundstage. Living in Las Vegas, Nevada means access to some nice desert scenery as usual, but here we also get some great location shots in a desolate area of Utah filled with crags, crevices, and volcanic rock.

The story returns to TERRARIUM territory (Mike's second feature, released on DVD by Lionsgate as WAR OF THE PLANETS) with a crashed spaceship on an alien planet inhabited by monsters. This time, cargo ship pilot Jason (Brian Sheridan) and his crew, Karen (Sheila Conway) and Glen (George Miklos), are hijacked by a stowaway (C.J. Hyatt) and forced to land on the planet Midlanteer, which is halfway between their warring planets of Granlibon and Kamoorsta. Jason and crew overpower the enemy soldier but are attacked by Kam fighter ships and crash-land. All three survive the crash but Jason is blinded while Karen and Glen are killed by large crablike creatures with stinger tails.

Jason soon makes a startling discovery--a towering female android named Reyna (the 6'4"-in-heels Heather Lei Guzzetta) who has been living in the hidden bunker laboratory of her recently-deceased creator. Reyna, who requires contact with a human in order to survive (something about bio-signatures that I didn't quite catch), adopts the blind Jason as a symbiotic partner and helps him stay alive against the bloodthirsty monsters and Kam soldiers who are after him. As their relationship deepens, the android eventually professes her love for Jason. But when he's captured by a search party during her absence, Jason learns a shocking secret that casts everything he thinks he knows about Reyna into serious doubt.


As is the case with all of Mike Conway's homegrown films, you have to keep the limited budget and resources in mind and make allowances whenever EXILE doesn't quite look like a Lucasfilms production. The fun part is seeing how stuff like this was pulled off in the first place. Conway gets a lot of mileage out of his After Effects program with some nifty digital trickery (particularly in the matte shots and gun flashes), and he manages some fairly cool green screen shots as well. Scott Lichfield's hideous planet monsters are nutty and fake-looking, but fun and rather ingeniously done. And as in the case of THE AWAKENING, Airsoft supplies some totally authentic-looking weaponry that adds a lot to the battle scenes.

Probably the most impressive visual elements of EXILE are the space scenes by visual effects artist James Rogers. Against a well-rendered background of stars and planets are some cool spaceships that are videogame-quality or better, with fluid movements and some interesting detail during the space battles. The cargo ship's crash landing on the planet (reminiscent of a similar sequence in PITCH BLACK) and subsequent destruction by Kam fighter ships are very well-done for this budget level. As always, one can either be dismissive of the relative simplicity of these effects or admire the fact that they look as good as they do.

With the Reyna character, Conway's script blends elements of TERMINATOR, ENEMY MINE, and Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" but manages to take things in an unexpected direction before it's over. Heather Lei Guzzetta is an imposing figure as always and is effective in the physical scenes. Brian Sheridan, of indie filmmaker Tiffany Sinclair's 2005 film PRAEY, gives a solid performance as Jason, while Sinclair herself is quite good as Jason's girlfriend Sira. Mike Conway's wife Sheila is her usual dependable self, with the performances of the rest of his stock company--including THE AWAKENING vets C.J. Hyatt, George Miklos, and Jake Bass--varying widely in quality. Daughter Carmen Conway does the opening narration.


The Utah exteriors look good although direction and photography at times display the somewhat rushed, unpolished quality you'd expect with such a tiny crew and harsh conditions. Fog and smoke effects are overdone in some shots, and the dubbing of the soldiers, whose faces are partially hidden by oxygen masks, is a bit awkward at times. Most of the action scenes are well-done, though, especially when Reyna goes on the offensive against the encroaching soldiers. I also like the ending, which is left intriguingly vague. All of this is accompanied by Mike Conway's own self-performed synthesizer score.

The DVD from Midnight Sun Entertainment is in 1.85:1 widescreen with stereo sound. Extras include the 16-minute "making of" featurette "Off World", a trailer, and a very brief short film entitled "Big Dreams."

As with the rest of Mike Conway's filmography, EXILE is one of those films that some will find entertaining while others can only shake their heads at how little it resembles the slick megabudget stuff they're accustomed to. As for me, I admire the audacity and tenacity of such do-it-yourself auteurs and enjoy seeing how much they can accomplish with so little to work with. It's sort of like a conjuring trick, making feature films out of thin air, and as always I look forward to seeing what Mike Conway will pull out of his hat next.

Buy it at Midnight Sun Entertainment

Read our interview with Mike Conway:
Part One
Part Two

EXILE -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE AWAKENING -- DVD Review by Porfle

(This review was originally posted at Bumscorner.com  in April, 2006.)

 Some people have cookouts in their backyards. Mike Conway makes movies in his.

The wrecked spaceship in his previous film, WAR OF THE PLANETS (aka TERRARIUM) was literally constructed and shot in his backyard. And for his latest effort, THE AWAKENING (2005), he used his garage as a soundstage for several of the sets. This sort of below-low-budget filmmaking can be very interesting if done by someone with a good imagination and a passion for making movies--both of which Mike Conway apparently has--and if you can get past the fact that the production values are on about the same level as an episode of "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger."

THE AWAKENING is the story of David Andrade (Conway, who also directed, edited, scored, and co-wrote the film along with Kelly Johnston and Erik Manion), a research scientist working on a top-secret government project involving the use of radiation to genetically improve the human body. When his wife Lara is diagnosed with terminal cancer, David sneaks her past the military security where he works, hooks her up to an experimental machine, and zaps her with radiation. Presto!--her cancer's cured overnight. But as time goes by, unexpected side-effects begin to develop, and Lara eventually becomes Supergirl. Well, not exactly, since her aggression, hostility, and penchant for violence have increased along with her physical abilities. So, "Super Bitch" would be more like it. (But don't call her that, or you're really in for it.) She even designs her own costume, Peter Parker-style, complete with black cape and thigh-high dominatrix boots, and goes out looking for excuses to kill people.

This, unfortunately, includes her husband David, since the big killjoy actually liked her better the other way and has been trying to find a means of reverting her back to normal. So Lara invades the research facility looking for him and starts throwing Marines around. When she finds David in his lab, he springs a trap that knocks her unconscious and prepares to reverse the super-power process.

Around this point in the movie, I'd already seen just about all the shots that were used in the trailer, and figured the story must be about played out by now. Which would've made it "ehh, pretty good", but nothing to get excited about. So I checked the running time to see how many single-digit minutes were left, and was startled to find that the movie was only half over. Hmm...what could possibly happen next...?

To my increasingly pleasant surprise, THE AWAKENING was just getting started. It seems the powers-that-be behind "Project Gladiator" are using David's research to aid in their quest to create super soldiers, and the last thing they want is for anything bad to happen to the first successful test subject. So while the Marines are trying to take her out, project director Michelle Richards (the striking, 6'4"-in-heels Heather Guzzetta) and her delightfully unlikable toady, Major Craig Konrad (Keith Ford) have called in a bunch of black-ops guys to take out the Marines and retrieve the "cargo." Naturally, this doesn't sit well with the gung-ho, old school Marine Captain Harris (Timothy S. Daley) in charge of security, so he enlists the aid of his trusted cohort Sgt. Benson (Clay Finan) and David Andrade to put some serious hurt on the black-ops guys and throw a monkey wrench into Project Gladiator.

I don't want to give any more of the plot away because it's too much fun to find out for yourself what happens next. But there's lots of shooting, explosions, gory death scenes, and outrageous situations, and it's all a lot more fun than any movie this low-budget has a right to be. I was constantly amazed at the inventiveness Mike Conway and his crew displayed in pulling off scenes that were visually stunning despite the cheap-looking special effects (while also making good use of desert locations around Las Vegas).

When Lara approaches an SUV on the highway after the driver stops to render assistance, I expected her to turn it over or something. Instead, she throws it, and then watches its downward progress with a smirk until we hear an off-camera crash. Later, she backhands the top of a soldier's head off, and the body staggers to the floor as the still-living head watches it. Sheesh--sure it looks fake, but by this point I didn't even care anymore.

The cast does a nice job as well. Most of them aren't really that great as actors, but they manage to make their characters interesting anyway. Tamra Ericson Frame starts out sorta "blah" as Lara, then gets better and better as she has more fun playing the over-the-top aspects of her character. Timothy S. Daley (one of several veterans of WAR OF THE PLANETS who show up here) makes a great no-nonsense Marine. Heather Guzzetta is a towering presence--literally--and is convincingly sinister. And Mike Conway, who will probably never win a "Best Actor" Oscar, does pretty well as David Andrade--his somewhat bland character anchors the rest of the movie.

The DVD features a making-of documentary called GUNS, GIRLS, AND CLONES (now there's a great movie title right there) that lets us see how a film like this is made on such a shoestring budget. It includes bloopers, cast and crew comments, and lots of behind-the-scenes footage that is especially interesting when showing us how some of the special effects were accomplished (a shot of Lara ripping a guy in half was inspired by the fact that their only stunt dummy broke in two during a take!) There's some digital wizardry that I didn't expect, mainly used to convincingly replicate the limited number of extras--in fact, there's a scene where two cops confront Lara, and the same actor plays both of them. We also get to see Conway and his cast and crew having a really good time making this movie.

To tell you the truth, WAR OF THE PLANETS wasn't all that exciting, so I really didn't expect a lot from its follow-up--which is what made it such a hoot to watch when it turned out as good as it did. I've seen plenty of gazillion-dollar movies that were boring. THE AWAKENING may have been partially filmed in a garage, but it isn't boring!

Read our interview with Mike Conway:
Part One
Part Two

Official website

THE AWAKENING -- DVD Review by Porfle