I suppose it's not every day that you get to sit behind a prolific director the first time you ever watch one of his films. "Astro Zombies M3: Cloned" was my first experience with the direction of Ted V. Mikels. Before the movie started he turned around and told me I looked familiar. Then he spoke of his children and 25 grandchildren. I'm sure he was thinking of them with the spirit of this film. It took me back to the days when I was young watching sci-fi with my dad on a Saturday morning.
There was a lot of humor used in "Astro Zombies M3: Cloned," but by far the most fun was the exploding zombies that burst into a cheesy C.G.I. ball of flames upon impact with a blow dart. I was surprised to see the plastic my first microscope and hardware that looked more like something out of Radio Shack, than a cloning lab, but since cloning produces a fetus, maybe this could be a more high tech cloning process producing full size Astro zombies. I couldn't reason around it, so I just had to laugh. There were enough ridiculous moments during the film that I ended up laughing a lot, especially with regard to the crazy bad effects. It reminded me of the skeletons in "Army of Darkness" where you could see the strings holding them together. It was entirely intentional. Although I'm not sure that the biological hazard team member who was obviously reading off a cue card was meant to be funny necessarily (even though it was.)
The director, Mikels, played twins in the film, one a general and another a drunk hippie. The peace loving twin commits suicide with cyanide and the effect was that he began smoking much like Morticia does in the Adams Family when she says "mind if I smoke?" I think that's the tone of the whole flick, just goofy, lighthearted and fun, which could also explain the two dimensional cartoony characters. The film itself was grainy and made almost to feel like 70's exploitation meets sci-fi meets James Bond in some sort of torrid three way.
There were points when a bit of editing would have done wonders for length, but for the most part there was momentum and a decent pace. The film does show slightly more female empowerment with The Doll Squad's emergence to kick some Astro zombie butt than the entirely weak slappity snap of "Sucker Punch." There was no nudity, swearing, sexual situations, and very little gore. My guess is that Mikels made this for his grandkids and kudos to him if true. It is good to know a whole new generation can watch some fun sci-fi like this too.
There was a lot of humor used in "Astro Zombies M3: Cloned," but by far the most fun was the exploding zombies that burst into a cheesy C.G.I. ball of flames upon impact with a blow dart. I was surprised to see the plastic my first microscope and hardware that looked more like something out of Radio Shack, than a cloning lab, but since cloning produces a fetus, maybe this could be a more high tech cloning process producing full size Astro zombies. I couldn't reason around it, so I just had to laugh. There were enough ridiculous moments during the film that I ended up laughing a lot, especially with regard to the crazy bad effects. It reminded me of the skeletons in "Army of Darkness" where you could see the strings holding them together. It was entirely intentional. Although I'm not sure that the biological hazard team member who was obviously reading off a cue card was meant to be funny necessarily (even though it was.)
The director, Mikels, played twins in the film, one a general and another a drunk hippie. The peace loving twin commits suicide with cyanide and the effect was that he began smoking much like Morticia does in the Adams Family when she says "mind if I smoke?" I think that's the tone of the whole flick, just goofy, lighthearted and fun, which could also explain the two dimensional cartoony characters. The film itself was grainy and made almost to feel like 70's exploitation meets sci-fi meets James Bond in some sort of torrid three way.
There were points when a bit of editing would have done wonders for length, but for the most part there was momentum and a decent pace. The film does show slightly more female empowerment with The Doll Squad's emergence to kick some Astro zombie butt than the entirely weak slappity snap of "Sucker Punch." There was no nudity, swearing, sexual situations, and very little gore. My guess is that Mikels made this for his grandkids and kudos to him if true. It is good to know a whole new generation can watch some fun sci-fi like this too.