I had this flick in my queue for a while saving it for when I was in the mood for something different. Going in with very low expectations I was not disappointed.As a cinematic experience it's not pleasant. There were few things about it that appealed to me visually and much of the time my enjoyment was shattered thinking of all of the ways a given scene could have been made better. And I know nothing about cinematography.I grant many concessions because I know it is not a large budget project. But at the same time I don't think the crew made of the most of what they had to work with. Low budget is not an excuse for gratuitous distractions using CGI that is more annoying than supportive. Just when I start to get into the mood of a given situation I get propelled back to the 80s by 16-bit graphics and cheesy sound. Commercial breaks would have been no more destructive.So as a movie in my mind anyway it's a pretty significant failure. Despite the efforts of a decent cast of actors who could be commended for nothing else than sticking it out with the tortured project to the end. (Although an unplanned exit might explain the sudden disappearance of the lead actress in the final act.)As a concept, however, it has a lot to offer.Although the backstory (and the present for that matter) is clumsily presented it is intriguing, and as far as I know is original. In a nutshell, religion has been outlawed on Earth and religious factions have been driven into space where they eke out survival on the moon in separate societies centered around ice mining operations. At some point hubris prevails among the atheists of earth when they plague the environment with runaway nano-technology. Having destroyed the global water supply they now fight the exiled for access to their ice mines. All the while the religious factions are also busy fighting among themselves (of course). In short it is about the waning days of humanity. That is, until... the discovery.Pretty good stuff. In skilled hands it could likely be made into a series of highly regarded hard scifi novels. So I feel it deserves at least 3 stars for that.Only, the terrible screen version is usually made after a novel has made its mark, not before.

The thing most people get wrong about this movie is that they focus on the special effects, and if you watch it as a 3D then it gets weird. Let me say to that: StarWars was pretty sparse in it's 3D for a zillion times the budget. So, purely dollars vs production value this movie still wins. And I'm a sucker for those movies that start with computerized messages and big long quotesStory wise it is an excellent movie: It takes place on the Moon, where religious people, called the Banished have been banned to after a war with the Unlights (maybe some sort atheists), on Earth. They don't use the word God but it is called the Outlaw. But there are various and numerous sects Shingatze Fear Monks, Protisarian (some form of Protestant??), Numero Kabbalists (jewish?), Gnostic Islam (they HAD to make the black girl a Moslim?), Hinbuddists (also very stereotypical religion for the Asian). And the atheist (or un-affiliated) is of course a mercenary.At the beginning of the movie it's said that the Unlights are now fleeing to Moon because the Earth is now too poisoned to live. The tribes already on the Moon are always battling for water, waging great wars actually. A patrol of soldiers is sent on a mission to find water but gets shot down. The heart of the movie is then how the 5 survivors are going on a long trek of 350 kilometres to the Rescue Point. This part of the film is the best and that's because of good acting and a good dialogue.If you cut through the BS of the odd special effects and somewhat unclear helmet displays, what remains is solid drama, carried by A-list or very able actors. This film has very strong right-wing slant, there is a very strong red state conservative Southern states connection. The heroes are all believers, and the villain is the ... atheist. The religious in the move are typically portrayed as rightwingers like to see themselves. Victims of some Evil Godless Big Government but also a scrappy band of rebels, standing up to the Evil Empire of non-believers "who outlawed God" and sent the religious "to the Moon to die". That's why god is called "the Outlaw", ya git it? Their name, Unlights, could be a disparaging of the United Nations: UN-lights, or the light-less from the UN. Rightwingers are always very paranoid about the UN, which in their paranoid world view is just an instrument to bring about the so-called New World Order.I don't like that underlying message of the film, but it didn't really distract all that much from the drama of the movie.And I actually LIKED the suits in all their clunkiness, they were a throwback to early nineties robots in Euro animation. Sure, the special effects clips from inside the helmets were confusing, but do realize that VERY MANY action scenes in Big Hollywood movies are DESIGNED to be confusing, so as to make them more impressive than they really are.And the space ships and out doors special effects were old-ish looking but not as bad as all that.The Melancholic Alcoholic.

I cannot believe anyone would give this movie anymore than 1 star much less 9 or 10. Everything about this movie is bad except maybe the poor actors trapped in this, this, I don't know what to call it. The premise was kinda neat but just so low budget, A scifi movie on the moon is gonna need a CGI budget of some kind. At least more than the hundred bucks it looks like they spent on this one.I'm serious if I could just show a pic of the spacesuits, you would skip this one. They look like cardboard rock'em sock'em robots without the colorful flair. I only watched this one to see which ratings were right because some of the 9/10 star reviews were from people who had been members over a year. Then after watching I went back and realized the reviews were written over a year ago and were the only review they had done. If I had known that I would have skipped it. I apologize to the reviewers that warned me. I should have listened, oh man just laughably bad.

And I'm not talking about "how bad the movie is" or me watching this was awful or worst ... ever scenarios. I've seen worse movie, that's not it. But I have never seen anything and talked to people after that, where no one ... let me write that get again -> NO ONE(!), not one single person, had anything good to say about the movie. This happened at Frightfest and if this movie won something, it was worst movie playing in 2014 at the Festival.Having said all that, I normally have a weak spot for movies that put a band of people together, preferably with different skills, diversity in general. One of the few things this almost succeeds in. One of the other being the science factor, where a friend of mine said, they got a couple of things right. But all is rendered useless, by an uninspired script, acting "wooden" (which is also attributed to the really bad costumes), bad effects that could be able to make you puke and a general disorientation at times. Which is even worse when it happens during action sequences. It's a shame, but this 3D experiment went completely off the rails .... not in a good way