DVD: The Last Sentinel

If you like 2000AD’s Rogue Trooper, Universal Soldier, Starship Troopers and I, Robot then read or watch them and avoid this massive rip off that purports to give us sci-fi fans something new but actually just manages to piss you off as you watch it!

When the back of a DVD boasts that the film is brought to you from the stunt team that worked on Mission Impossible 3, War of the Worlds and Beowulf you might think that it might have a small guarantee of quality but you’d be wrong! The plot (if you can call it that) takes place on a seemingly ravaged planet Earth where engineered perfect soldiers (called drones) have now turned on their human masters and herded them into ghettos and work camps but have stopped crime and war in their tracks as a result.

Electronically enhanced soldier Tallis (Don “The Dragon” Wilson) is out on his own fighting the good fight when he rescues a beautiful rebel fighter (Katee Sackhoff) from a failed resistance mission. She is hurt but he nurses her back to health and as she is a force to be reckoned with he tells her she must learn to fight and think like a machine in order for them to team up to save the human race together.

Okay the plot is old, clichéd and piss poor but lets focus on the positives first before this film is torn apart by more than drone gunfire. The SFX and CGI in places is actually pretty good with exploding head shots, massive explosions and seemingly never ending gun battles where no one really hits each other just like an old A Team episode, despite Tallis having a smart eye and AI gun to help him out!

The reason also that it’s like Rogue Trooper is that they had AI chips with the personalities of other soldiers implanted into their helmets, guns and backpacks that commented on the action and helped out during battles. This is a really cool idea never really seen on screen before and in this film (although they ripped off 2000AD) the talking AI gun gets all the best lines and out-acts everyone else in the film.

On the negative side it seems to be shot on a studio backlot on cheap DV cameras and the other main location is an old oil refinery that is used in at least five different scenes despite it looking like the same place every time.

The score is fleshed out with over the top dramatic classical music that really does not work in any part of the film and the drone rising back-story makes no real sense. The rebel girl character (Sackhoff) even disappears from the film for about 25 minutes with no clue or explanation where she has gone (probably tried to escape the movie) and then turns up again at the end. Don Wilson looks old now and should probably hang up his martial arts belt soon, but he seems to enjoy his growling stoic soldier role. While, Sackhoff looks embarrassed throughout and is even made to take her clothes off at one point for no reason!

Overall it’s an enjoyably daft film but God only knows why anyone would want to part with cash to buy this unless they are really die hard Wilson or Battlestar Galactica fans.

Mark Cappuccio