Extraordinary Movie & Video Guide

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Planetfall. USA 2006. Directed by Gianni Mezzanotte.

Somewhere in space, a planet has barely survived the war. A landing spaceship is carrying a drug that makes the psychic powers go boom. When the spaceship crashes, there are bounty hunters and criminals after it. Enter Wendy and Lux. female bounty hunters who do not know of each other and their male sidekicks Shark and Ugly. Strangely enough, Wendy's father Arch Stanton is the president of the planet.

Planetfall succeeds in many areas, that are crucial to the mixture of science fiction, comedy, action and well.. western. Although the cheapo special effects & CGI looks more like an old computer game than virtual reality, the whole world has a strangely captivating atmosphere that looks convincing, with the help of oddball characters.

Also, the main characters are sympathetic enough to make the viewer care about 'em. In some ways it's unfortunate, that Leitha Matz and Alan Struthers (Wendy and Ugly) had more chemistry in their performances than those who should've had : lead characters Heidi Fellner and Snype Myers (Lux and Shark) have their moments in their love/hate relationship, but not enough tension. But luckily there is Ted V. Mikels, legendary z-grade director that does over the top performance as Arch Stanton, and saves a lot of this viewing experience.

Planetfall has its moments but unfortunately after a first half an hour, the movie loses its grip. Can it be that Planetfall lasted for 90 minutes only because it could be called a full-length feature film? I sure hope not. Still, there are not enough interesting factors to make the viewer stay concentrated. Though I would like to witness Planetfall as a very nice short film, I can truly understand that the filmmakers are proud of every minute they worked for. And so will be it. Especially because Planetfall won bronze in Telly Awards "low budget" -category - congratulations despite my whining!

The DVD release by Heretic is on the hand, very nice. For a low-budget movie, it's delighting to listen to a good 5.1 mix. 2+ hours of special features have some interesting footage like behind the scenes documentary, production design featurette and lovely & highly interesting Ted V. Mikels interview.

Director Gianni Mezzanotte on the other hand, is Michael J. Heagle in real life. But "Gianni Mezzanotte" sounds good, and gives some street credibility for a spaghetti westernish movie!