Helios in action. Remind me not to meet him in a dark alley.
In the category of stone-cold stubbornness I must place Galaxy Lords (2018), a motley collection of competence, incompetence, and, really, something else for which I have no word but stubbornness. Multiverse savior Helios, now in self-imposed exile, is whacking away at a log with his axe when his old comrade, Wranthelon, pops in to tell him the entire multiverse is in danger of falling under the sway of the evil Prince Adorastius, and the Champions are assembling to repulse him, despite the disapproval of the King. After some agonizing, Helios agrees. He leads a crew of clones and an apprentice multiverse-saver on a ship equipped with a prototype, super-fast star drive to the planet on which Adorastius, surrounded by henchmen and hench-robots, is installing the complete version of the star-drive on his ship, in an attempt to stop him before he can use this tech to take defeat all of his foes. They infiltrate the castle, find the captive scientist (who subsequently explodes).
But they’re too late. Helios’ ship is ordered to escape, but the evil Prince Adorastius super-ship damages it while flitting about. Then the aforementioned Champions show up, and in their attempts to save Helios’ ship, they’re turned into shredded cheese. The evil Prince escapes, thinking he’s destroyed Helios, but Helios’ old pal Wranthelon sacrifices himself for Helios, and we end with Helios vowing vengeance.
Yeow, a sequel?
First, the competent stuff. The CGI spaceships, and the space station (which actually got an “ooooooh!” from my Arts Editor), were well done, both technically and aesthetically. Into the same category we’ll put some, but not all, of the landscapes and skyscapes. The makeup is OK, and the costumes are, ah, inventive, probably in the absence of a budget of any size. Oh, and I thought Helios’ voice was moderately well-done.
But after that things go downhill. But I’ll give them this: it feels like a student project. All the actors appear to be very young. That is, they don’t shave. And yet they carry on through this with a show of persistence that is applaudable.
So: the dialog is terrible, the acting left tooth marks all over the scenery, the scenery was mostly CGI and terrible, and the plot was a mishmash of so many other plots, with a few buzzwords thrown in. Oh, and the battle scenes! No sense of how to really stage a battle, and when someone was offed, well, at least once even the camera was spattered with the blood ‘n gore. We were actually laughing through these.
And, yet, throughout this toothclencher, we, too, persisted. There was a thread to this mess which was somewhat interesting, and I think it was the sense that sometimes the good pay a dear, dear price for doing good. The self-sacrifice of the Champions was poorly implemented, as it were, yet it was there. There was no magical saving of them – they die doing what they think is right.
So, whoever made this mess either just stumbled over a positive element, or actually had their head on straight when it comes to stories like these.
But if you’re going to watch this, make sure beer is involved. A lot of it.
