Wasteland and Borrowing from Sci-Fi's Best: A Movie Review

*a screener of this film was provided by the director Kantz.

Director: Kantz.

Writers: Kantz, and Lucas Culshaw.

Admittedly, this reviewer has talked to Kantz on several occasions and his passion for filmmaking often comes through in the topics he likes to talk about. This reviewer loves to talk of film too. That is what makes reviewing Wasteland so much harder. This sci-fi title came out of DVD October 11th and the screener came not much later than that. This is a post-apocalyptic yarn involving revenge as one man, named Keo (Garret Sato), sets out to kill members of the Church, the people who assaulted his wife and kidnapped his only son. This is a pretty straight forward homage to Albert Pyun's 1989 flick Cyborg, with costumes, action and plot line eerily similar. This latest incarnation had a much smaller budget, cast and the audio is almost entirely dubbed to the film's detriment.

Keo survives an attack on his camper, with several members of the Church taking, by force, his hospitality and his wife. Keo is shot three times but he manages to survive. Then, there is a pause of seventeen years and strangely, all the characters look the same age despite the passage of time. Now, Keo is searching the Wasteland for those who killed his wife and recruited his son. Gone is the tension of Cyborg in which actor Vincent Klyn played a brutal and ruthless antagonist known as Fender. Instead, director Kantz introduces a Tremor like monster that roots around in the soil, to explode later via a grenade from Keo. Keo's trip to the Church to find his son and to settle the score is also interrupted by mutants wearing silly looking masks and a marauding group of Asian women who have the firepower to back up their terse words. Then the final showdown between Keo and the Church offers none of the exciting martial arts sequences of Pyun's 1989 production. There is only a fade to black when the wearied protagonist meets the Church's newest leader whose identity will not be revealed here, but inferences in this review will clue you in to who it is.

Let us keep this review short to minimize the reader and the writer's pain. Wasteland is not a good film. To compare Wasteland with Cyborg is a little unfair, but the plotline is so similar between these two films and so is the genre, sci-fi. To compare this film with others similar in budget would require a mention of Brad Sykes' Plaguers. Plaguers is another bare budget sci-fi project that borrows heavily from Ridley Scott's Aliens. Both homages involve surviving in hostile settings and both films are very bad. Simply put, the budget for Wasteland did not allow for synched audio; there is a lot of dubbing in this feature. The acting is not always believable especially when a character is holding a spear in place after being wounded while trying to deliver lines. There is no passion in much of the dialogue. As well, there are practically no shots involving special effects. This is a bare bones film and viewers preparing to see Wasteland should have bare bone expectations.

This film will only find a following from the most die hard of sci-fi indie fans. Others will likely feel disappointed by some of the poor attention to details. Kantz uses some intercutting to affect and to show Keo's state of mind after the loss of his wife. However, other technical flaws e.g. low audio and pitch, poor acting, and dubbing take away the enjoyment factor from the film. And really, if you have seen Cyborg then you have seen this film done much better.

Overall : 4.5 out of 10 (Wasteland does not fully utilize one of the three essential filmmaking elements - audio; much of the film is dubbedthe film).

The film's fan page is here:

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Posted in: 2011,2011 release,kantz,movie review,post apocalyptic,post apocalyptic movie preview,sci-fi,sci-fi movie review 2011,the wasteland horror,wasteland