Ultra Red

Nothing to see here. A standard sci fi plot made by the talentless with zero budget.

The acting is awful, no wonder you have never heard of any of the actors before.

The dialogue is ridiculous and badly delivered.

The plot points are a joke. This was clearly written by someone with zero understanding of science, space or the sci-fi genre.

The ....errr...spaceship, is laughable. The sets are cheap. The lighting is nonexistent and the direction is weary.

On top of all this, it is boring. It trudges from one scene to another with no pace or vigour.

I have seen micro budget stuff like this before and it has been at least passable. This is not.

Absolutely dire.

The dialogue is cringeworthy, and made even worse by such poor delivery. Almost every word uttered sounds forced, contrived.

The plot is okay in general terms, but collapses once you get down to the detail. The main character continually overemphasises his sleaziness and rebel-without-a-cause temperament and ends up in a heavy-weapons fight with two crew-members all over a bottle of whiskey. In real life, such a misfit would never have been allowed anywhere near a NASA facility, let on board a mission to Mars.

Casting: Terrible - at least as far as the main characters are concerned. The minor players - such as the two pilots - should have been put in the major roles as they are clearly more competent and deserve better than this lousy movie. To be fair, though, most of the cast have been compromised by the awful script.

The directing isn't too bad, but as the old saying goes, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

One of the worst aspects of this film is the CGI. At times you'd think they'd used the stop-motion techniques employed in the "Jason and the Argonauts" movies of the 1960s.

Give this one a miss.

Good Premises Red neck, bad real bad and way off base. Engineers smarter than you show. Smuggled alcohol wouldn't be out in the open. I've seen 18 year olds that are better at smuggling onto a Naval ship Single person going out, NEVER, NASA uses military protocols. That means unknown threat 2 person team. We are talking tear in suit DEAD.

Tech working on gear, would have another person.

What it shows is a movie that could be good failing do to ignorance, bad research and biases without the curtesy to find out the basic procedures/protocols I can see the attempts at humor but they don't work. Your trying to force the humor and that never works You have to maintain your foundation.

NASA doesn't accept just anyone, your grease monkeys don't represent current Naval Engineering much less aviation. Cleanliness in MANDATORY For your information I have 24 years military service, worked on conventional, gas turbine, and nuclear power shipped. Have meant and known astronauts. Have lived in the Houston area and talked with those that work for NASA, since High School. I have friend that worked on the Hubble Telescope. Specialized in Computers and Communication equipment, Aviation and Warfare qualified, served on 5 US ships.

Sad when the potential for a good movie is ruined bad enough that I am making my first review.

Indie filmmaker Michael Fredianelli takes off from his usual comfort zone of earth bound tough guy cinema to explore the final frontier with a sci-fi movie set mostly in space. This microbudget production is an impressive one and many of the visual effects utilized are jaw dropping especially when it comes to the indie arena. Of particular standout is the segment of the film depicting the Mars surface-- Sci-fi geeks will only recognize the familiar Agua Dulce terrain when they're done marveling at how skillful (if obviously exaggerated for effect) a recreation of the red planet the film achieves. It makes Mars seem truly frightening in all its desolate rocky and dusty landscape. Similarly, the movie makes the cold vacuum of space seem equally as vast and scary and borrows much from the look and feel from the Hollywood sci-fi classic Alien.

Well there is no denying the technical achievements on display with Ultra Red, its biggest problem is its script. It utilizes a plot that very much resembles Star Trek's The "Naked Time" and its Next Generation follow up "The Naked Now" and deals with an extraterrestrial substance that effects the brain similarly to alcohol. However the way the substance is discovered and delivered comes off clear as day as a rather clunky MacGuffin. Furthermore, there are other problems with believability. The crew of the spaceship (NASA no less) in the movie is comically unprofessional and it wasn't enough for the lead character to be a genius rover vehicle designer, but also a master thief with a rap sheet a mile long as well. Other times, the film's technobabble just comes off poorly developed like when we're told that a futuristic weapon operates on the same principle as said rover which itself is more clearly modeled after present day technology. Now, I'm no scientist, but elements like that read more as pure kayfabe to me and took me out of the movie a bit.

While it's highly ambitious and impressive in many facets as well as highly entertaining for much of its running time, Ultra Red stumbles in too many places to be a clear win and instead comes off as a rather mixed bag.

Cool futuristic spaceship sets, effects, cinematography, and engaging mystery plot around a strange alien entity on Mars become heavily undermined by how aggressively smug and unlikeable the main hero comes off right from the start of the film. Even more unfortunately, things don't get any better for him as he insults his way through the rest of the film, making lewd comments to his superiors even while on his multi-billion dollar Mars walk. This would be more forgivable if he demonstrates some kind of clever ingenuity to display why everyone else must tolerate his behavior, but he seldom really exhibits any competence whatsoever. His saving grace lies in the fact that he is surrounded by a similarly dismal group of self-centered numbskulls who don't even seem to care that much about the mission, their own lives, or the lives of their coworkers once they start getting bumped off. At least things never get predictable.

I did find the over-the-top lack of professionalism among the crew of an experimental United States Government funded spaceship to be an amusing commentary though on the current state of our top agencies. It may or may not have been the agenda that this film was going for, but it's the satirical bend of this movie that makes it the most worthwhile. I'm going to go ahead and give it a higher rating keeping this in mind, plus how impressive the movie looks when taking its tiny indie budget into consideration. It could easily have devolved into a silly Asylum type "sharks in space" sort of movie but never stoops to that level.

Keep an eye out for some eye-popping visuals and a couple cute aliens who pop by to liven things up. The overall story reminds me a lot of the two "Naked" Star Trek episodes (once the alien object starts to infect the crew in a way that causes them to lose inhibition and... you guessed it... behave even less-professionally), but even more so of the Doctor Who episode "Planet of Evil" in that the object seems to bring an evil corrupting alien presence with it which proceeds to pare the crew down to such a degree that one wonders how the ship remains space-worthy. I was a bit disappointed that it doesn't quite come together as handily as the Doctor Who episode or even delve too deeply into alien intelligence, life, or past civilizations, only to focus on the petty internal squabbling.

Also watch out for some random nudity late in the film that comes absolutely out of nowhere. Also keep in mind that there's a few over-the-top gory moments sprinkled in which may preclude younger viewers from jumping right in, unless their parents are into this sort of thing.