COLONIALS ** USA 2023 Dirs: Andrew Balek & Joe Bland. 80 Mins
This one is best paraphrased by a quote from Heartbreak Ridge (1986) in which Clint Eastwood’s character remarks to a bunch of recruits “The audience is looking for a few good Science Fiction films. Unfortunately, you ain’t it”. The work in question and everyone points the name of the Producer/Director out is the atrocious Joe Bland co-directed film Colonials (2023). When I first saw the name, I thought of Charles Band of Full Moon Features fame which is in the same style as a film like Trancers (1984) and others. Full Moon does this well with tongue firmly planted in cheek and other areas leading one to think Bland Productions is trying to be similar.
Low-budget science fiction today doesn’t perform well unlike yesteryear with all the charm of War Of The Colossal Beast (1958), Attack Of The Fifty-Foot Woman (1958), and personal favourite The Monolith Monsters (1957) plus many more. The early Godzilla series of films could get away with Smog Monsters and people in rubber suits stomping cities and wrecking model trains with sincerity. The huge difference is the audience of then which was mostly kids at a Saturday matinee who went for a thrill, to eat ridiculously buttered popcorn and be kids at a cheap price. Today that works but only if you can do it with charm and a certain kitsch. That is why Colonials (2023) is so utterly daft in execution, story, production values and final payoff.
Today’s audience is expected to swallow a recycled plot of Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars, of invasion by someone called the Exiles with the only people to lead Earth in a war being the legendary Colonials.
The picture opens with Silas (Greg Kriek) sleeping through his alarm. Spark (Jon Provost) the film’s cute robot wakes him up by urinating on him. Well, it sets the tone along with the sanctimonious parent’s video call from Silas’s father, Tobias (Daniel Roebuck), a big shot in the Martian colonial government calls to remind him that not only will the mission he’s about to undertake determine the fate of humanity, but whether or not he and his two female “Final Girl’ dressed companions Jessie (Katy Purnell) and Allie (Cass Huckabay) become full-fledged Colonials. Of course, there is an attack, and the females perish but Silas lives tis more the pity, roll credits yet no such luck. However, Silas ends up with amnesia due to his crash landing and is rescued by a resistance group. You fall on a planet and you just land in a resistance group.
The clichés are too many to mention here so if you view them between groans, you can see them plainly. Needless to say it’s about secret weapon missions to get a version of an ultimate fighter jet etc.
Much of Colonials (2023) is shot in front of a green screen with terrible results for a film if it was a low-end video game. The spaceship interiors are giant but look like something out of Final Fantasy or The Other Worlds. This is explained because Bland Productions who did this film work on video games in fact Colonials (2023) is slated to be made into one. That would explain the ridiculous script and horrid acting which would look better in voice-over.
Is there something that works in Colonials (2023)? Believe it or not, yes Allie Ayers in the role of Raven looks positively evil in her leather suit and short hair. She struts around and delivers her lines in the comic book spirit of the film recalling a young Kate Beckinsale having fun. Another moment is when Silas meets a deaf resistance fighter who looks like he could be a member of The Bee Gees and has a better command of English than he does. Too bad the rest of the people did not have fun in the film as it could have been a romp instead of a tedious exercise selling a video game.
Colonials (2023) should be viewed only if there is nothing to watch and you feel you must see something but keep the sound down. This picture also features one of the most irritatingly dumb heroes and screams by that person in character that one wonders why they are there except for comic relief. Be warned.
Review by Terry Sherwood
Colonials is available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and Amazon Prime Video in the USA