What a waste of my time!!!

A Disappointing Continuation

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

On a distant planet the human overlords are slowly wiping out the indigenous species known as Arids in order to take the planet's raw materials. If it sounds like "Avatar", wait. Griffin (Julian Sands) is the evil human viceroy over the planet which he runs like the Roman Empire.Moss (Angus Macfadyen )is a rebel that Griffin is hunting and wants to kill. Through a series of events a human named Hirokin (Wes Bentley) winds up in Moss' s camp. Moss knows the old "Way" which is like an oriental earth religion, plus martial arts. He instructs Hirokin in "The Way" so he can unite the tribes and defeat the humans. "The Way" also allows one to see the outcome of their decision before it happens.The humans have great advances like hover crafts, but fight with swords and spears. It is difficult to tell humans from Arids except by the lines on their hands. They can interbreed, but unfortunately the genocide has caused most of the Arid women to become barren.To add to the mix there are some woman/breeding/jealousy issues between Griffin, Hirokin, Griffin's barren girlfriend Orange(Jessica Szohr) Hirokin's fertile wife Terra (Mercedes Manning) and Moss's daughter Maren (Laura Ramsey).The acting and dialogue was fairly bad. They could have interjected some humor from time to time...like "These 2 Arids walk into a bar for the first time and say, "I'll have the usual..."No f-bombs, sex, nudity. Rape? Woman showers with her clothes on. PG sex talk "submit"

Another day, another B-movie, and in the case of HIROKIN: THE LAST SAMURAI, a B-movie content to copy bits and pieces of earlier films like GLADIATOR rather than coming up with anything original. This one was shot on a couple of desert locations and features a slumming-it Wes Bentley as the titular hero, fighter of evil, champion of the oppressed, who gets captured by a warlord and proceeds to start a revolt. The film has plenty of action sequences, but they're directed in a choppy way where you never see anything, obviously by people with no idea of proper fight choreography or how to shoot even a semi-successful fight scene. The cast is peppered with familiar faces, from PIRANHA 3D's Jessica Szohr to BRAVEHEART's Angus Macfadyen, and of course it's almost inevitable that Julian Sands plays the villain. But this is pitiful stuff indeed and barely worthy of your time.

With a little editing, this could become a cult classic. Good actors, great landscape, a little hokey hover craft. Wes Bentley did a great job with a heavy dose of on-screen close-ups. Scenery was majestic.The beginning written explanation of the situation is difficult to read, too long and goes by a little fast. The music needs to be lowered so that the dialog can be heard. Voices echoed at puzzling times. Some of the scenes need to be shortened, especially the ones roaming the desert. Costumes were well done. The one-sheet is great. Reviewers are a little too serious. This film has elements that are interesting and attractive. It should do well internationally.

My summary line is the title the movie received when it was released in Germany. You've got to admit, that makes it sound intriguing and interesting. But the movie itself, that tries to copy quite a lot of Sci-Fi movies (some of them have copied other formulas of course, so there is nothing wrong with that idea), never quite gets there. It starts with the dialog and continues with just above the average (sometimes) fight scenes.Don't get it twisted, it's not completely awful (I've seen worse FX and worse stories). The stoic acting of Wes Bentley will make you wonder if he has lost or never had any acting abilities. A fantasy tale that tries to be epic and does look good (colors on Blu Ray), but is it enough?