Ferocious Planet (2011)

This is one of those goofy creature features made for the Sci-fi channel and it is a pretty good one.  Here we have a scientist that has invented a device that allows them to look into parallel dimensions.  While testing it for some big wigs there is an accident and part of the building they are in is transported.  Very quickly the creatures that inhabit the dimension start to chow down on the visiting humans as they try and figure out a way home.  The rest of the movie is them trying to overcome obstacle after obstacle (more on this later) until they think they can return home.

I normally don’t have high expectations when I sit down to check out an original Sci-fi network movie.  Oh and just in case you are wondering I do know they changed spelling to a much “hipper” version, but I won’t use it.  I’m an old school nerd you see…  Anyway back to the review.  Ferocious Planet exceeded my expectations and is a pretty solid little creature feature.  The story is familiar with the group being stranded in a strange and dangerous land having to fight thru all kinds of monsters while searching for their way back.  You have obnoxious characters that meet bad ends and a scientist that values discovering stuff more then her own life.  So yeah typical science fiction movie themes.  What I didn’t expect was the level of humor that the movie has.  It isn’t trying to make fun of itself or parody this kind of movie.  Instead it finds funny situations that come from the situation.  I liked it and found it entertaining. 

Of course this isn’t a perfect movie.  I thought that the plot sort of ran out of gas towards the end.  It seems as if the only way the filmmakers could stretch the runtime was by having one complication after another to delay them getting home.  1st they need 50 gallons of water, then they have to get eggs to use as coolant for the machine, then they have to try a couple of different things to get the creature away from the nest to get the eggs to cool the machine so the water can be used to run the cold fusion generator.  Hey wait a minute why do you need to cool a cold fusion generator?

Time to talk about the creatures.  Sure the monsters and gore are all CGI, but I have a new philosophy on this.  You see back in the day the low budget genre movies had to use goofy rubber suites and normal sized insects on pictures of buildings or models of cars to show the attacks.  Now they generate images that are just as silly on a computer.  So it doesn’t bother me anymore.  But let me qualify this a bit.  If you use CGI to do easy stuff like muzzle flashes and bullet hits I still find this annoying.  But for big fantasy stuff like monsters from another dimension I will cut you some slack. 

I can’t say that Ferocious Planet is a great movie.  As I’ve stated there are some pacing issues and the plot is kind of silly.  But there is enough fun to be had here for at least one viewing. 

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer