Direct To DVD -- The Planet, Carbabes.

Here’s a couple of Direct to DVD Reviews that are hitting stores today.

The Planet
Year: 2008
Director: Mark Stirton
Stars: Mike Mitchell, Patrick Wight, Scott Ironside
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: MTI Home Entertainment
Running Time: 69 Mins
Review Rating: 3.5 Stars
Official Website: http://www.stirtonproductions.com/ThePlanet_front.htm


The Planet is about a group of mercenaries who crashed landed on a distant planet and are forced to abandon their spaceship. Things don’t get better for the soldiers, as they soon discover that something is stalking them. What they discover is a mysterious force that turns the souls of their soldiers against them. Soon they’re not a fight for their own lives but the lives of every one in the entire universe.

The Planet is an action-packed science fiction film. Director Mark Stirton does a very good keeping the action and the suspense up. His direction of the actors was very good. Stirton made sure that his actors have had chemistry with each other. That was needed to build chemistry, since the actors are with each other for most of the film. The film also has some very good special effects, especially with the beginning of the film, which set the tone for it.

The screenplay also written by Stirton was good for the most part. The story was developed very well, as the action didn’t feel rushed. He doesn’t rush the action, as Stirton instead, focuses on the story and the strange happenings on the planet, which makes for a better movie. Another thing, he does with the screenplay is focus on the struggles of the soldiers instead of blowing things up all the time. The only problem that I had with the screenplay was the fact that it was too short, as the film’s running time was only 69 minutes. He could have used more time to develop these characters, as they were interesting, but I can understand since this is a low-budget film.

The Planet is an action packed science fiction film that packs a lot of power.


DVD Extras:

Crisis Management - The Making of the Planet
Trailers


CarBabes
Year: 2008
Director: Nick Fumia, Chris Wolf
Stars: Ben Savage, John Gries, Carolina Garcia
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Studio: Vivendi Visual Entertainment / Radio London Films
Running Time: 90 Mins
Review Rating: 3 Stars
Official Website: http://www.carbabesthemovie.com/


Carbabes is about recent college graduate Ford Davis (Ben Savage) who ends up working for father as a used car salesman after not trying hard to find a real job. Soon, he realizes that being a car salesman is not that easy as the job can be very chaotic. Now, along with a couple of fellow car salesmen and his beautiful hot girlfriend, Davis must take on a scheming boss (John Gris) and a mobile-home tycoon who’s out take his fathers business and leave him jobless again.

This is one of those types of films that I thought I was going to put on my worst films of 2008 list from the first five minutes alone. But surprisingly Carbabes is a decent and good film. Directors Nick Fumia and Chris Wolf did a solid job with directing, as the film for the most part didn’t feel like an MTV music video. They also did a good job directing the actors. The actor’s performances were good enough to keep my interest. There’s also a very good supporting performance from

John Gries (Napoleon Dynamite) as he made character one of those odd character villians that you see in comedy films. He’s a very underrated actor, in my opinion.

The screenplay that was written by Fumiam, Wolf, and Blake Dirickson was solid at best. The screenplay has some problems including some of the humor. The humor was okay. There were some parts that I found funny and others felt boring at times. Also, I thought that some of the characters were annoying and uninteresting. But the reason I liked it was with the fact that it developed its subplots. They were interesting and entertaining like the relationship between both Savage and Garcia’s characters. If that plot line didn’t work for me then this film would have gone downhill in a hurry to the point where I wouldn’t have been interested in anything else that happened. The reason I felt that way is, because if your screenplay doesn’t have an interesting main sub plot when the film is so-so then you’re not going to care about, so that why that plot line kept my interest and saved it for me.

Carbabes is definitely not a used film, as it was funny and entertaining at times.

DVD Extras:

Screen Tests
Original Theatrical Trailer
Trailers

Making of the Music for Carbabes.