STAR RAIDERS: THE ADVENTURES OF SABER RAINE (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I feel justified in spilling one plot-point in this DTV flick because it's the only thing that caused me to sit and take notice of the generally vapid goings-on.

To be fair, writer-director Mark Steven Grove's movie with the long-ass name-- SABER, for short-- does at least keep a lot of action unfolding from moment to moment, which is more than one can say of (for instance) the two AVENGERS GRIMM films. All of the action is blandly derivative of the original STAR WARS, but "routine imitation" is still a little better than "original but boring."

Casper Van Dien is the titular Saber Raine. He was once a respected officer in the Star Force (or whatever), but he made some big mistake and got cashiered. Some time later, an evil mastermind named Sinjin (James Lew, whose face remains obscured by makeup or his Vader-mask for the whole film) kidnaps Prince Tyr and Princess Calliope, presumably for some political advantage. The Star Force sends three soldiers to seek out the help of the now mercenary Saber Raine.

Most of the film's scenes take place either on the same forested planet where the soldiers find Raine, or in the cut-rate sanctum of Dark Helmet-- I mean, Sinjin. Sinjin is given the rudiments of some old grudge against the Galactic Empire, but that didn't hold my interest any more than Saber Raine's mostly forgotten misdeed. Both actors have to make do with simplistic, stock dialogue, so it's impossible to know if they could've done better with a better script.

The one interesting plot-point might be seen as a parody of a "mystic seduction" trope suggested in RETURN OF THE JEDI-- for while Prince Tyr (Tyler Weaver Jr) isn't looking, Sinjin persuades Calliope (Sara N. Salazar) to join him in his evil pursuits. Salazar's role is a little juicier than anyone else's, and she comes off as a decent villain, who's still allied with Sinjin in the film's coda. However, her betrayal is, well, betrayed by the shallow acting of Weaver in the role of Tyr.

Despite the flagrant GGI effects, the best-handled scene is a basic swordfight between Van Dien's hero and Salazar's villainess. Top-billed Cynthia Rothrock appears for a couple of minutes near the film's end just to mouth more banal lines, so Rothrock completists beware.