Within the Rock (1996)

I'm one of those people that actually enjoy B-movies. Well, B-movies that aren't stupid. Anyways, I watched "Within the Rock" with very low expectations. My expectations were exceeded. Let's face it: 90'S Horror and Sci-Fi movies were mostly crap. However, this film manages to pull off being crappy with a good story, average acting, average effects, and a pretty cool monster. This film has cool fights, suspenseful jumps, and an interesting look at space-mining.For the little amount of money that was used for this film, it was used well. I recommend "Within the Rock" for anyone who will settle for an average, entertaining Sci-Fi flick.

I received this movie from a friend, claiming that it was a great movie I couldn't afford to miss. I asked him what it was about, and he said the story involved rock aliens, which immediately attracted my interest. After watching it, I thought the movie was average in every aspect, but leaning more towards the 'bad' side.The movie is about a huge asteroid heading towards good ol' Earth, and (not to the viewer's surprise) people are sent up in a space ship to drill the asteroid to pieces. The spaceship "Galileo's Child" is a cheap piece of plastic, which they have projected onto the Windows 95 Starfield screensaver to create the flight-through-space scenes. That's the way it looks like. Aboard the ship are the typical bad ass "space pirates" plus a "misunderstood" scientist played by Caroline Barclay. They land on the red asteroid (which looks like a floating meatball) and start drilling away. With big drills. There is no logic in this, however.This movie is set in the far future, so why not have automated drills, so they don't need to spend money on oxygen canisters etc. "Because then there'd be no killing scenes." Oh boy.But hell is set loose when on the 3rd day (I think), the guys stumble across a grave filled with artifacts and other styrofoam crap. Of course, everybody (except the 'cool' scientist) goes nuts and start stealing the valuable alien plastic, but OH NO, the ancient guard of the stone grave is resurrected, to protect the grave from Zzzzz...I won't tell you about the rest, but it is all so predictable. Most of the scenes are blatantly "ALIEN" rip-offs, and it all happens so slooowly, that the scenes get boring. There's only one good kill scene, and that's where one of the bad asses gets a drill through her head. Slowly, too - but painful. The alien itself looks like a walking piece of styrofoam rock. And it looks happy the whole time.Even though it has it's extremely bad moments, the movie is enjoyable at times. The actors are complete crap, so you'll love it when they die. DIE. Overall: 4/10

I really can't say anything bad *or* good about this thing. Its characters are likable enough, it's capably produced and designed, and professional-looking (except for that cheesy monster suit). However, it has no originality, no ideas, and nothing you haven't seen in ALIEN, PREDATOR, ARMAGEDDON and/or OUTLAND. It's just another formula, cookie-cutter, "grimy corporate drones in deep space versus unstoppable monster" flick. Pretty much a waste of time.

A "renegade moon" called Galileo's Child is headed for Earth. A drilling team is sent to create tunnels to be used as propulsion channels for a nuclear detonation that is to divert the moon from its collision course. That in itself is a rough job, but add to that one very angry awakened-from-hibernation alien, and you get an entertaining film containing cool makeup effects and good character development. A good bet for a relaxing night of no-brainer cinema.(sounds a little like two other recent movie plots huh? - this was done two years earlier and to better end than one of them - so who copied who?)