In Review: Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar

Synopsis: Life is an adventure for space scavengers Kip Corman and his daughter Taylor as they navigate their ship through a universe filled with monsters, aliens, and robots in order to reach the mythical Deepstar and collect the riches within.

The Story

Space Wars focuses on a Father and Daughter Kip Cormon and his daughter Taylor who make a living as scavengers. When they get a tip about the legendary Deepstar Space ship. They hope that retrieving the ship’s treasure will help them pay to have the soul essence of Taylor’s mum Lacey transferred into an android body. Unfortunately for them. Retrieving the Deepstar’s treasure will not be so easy as they have Dykstra and his mercenaries to deal with who are also after the treasure. Added to which a fair few space monsters to fight.

The Acting

Truth be told. You don’t watch this sort of low-budget sci-fi movie for the acting. As it can often be rather hit-and-miss anyway. Michael Paré is pretty solid in his role of Captain Kip Cormon and plays all the emotional beats fairly well. Especially when it concerns trying to get the credit so he can be reunited with his late wife via a process that transfers a person’s soul essence into an android body so that they can continue living. The character motivation of Kip and his daughter Talyer (Sarah French) is to get the credits so they can have their small family back together. Which sort of works as a subplot for the film and the actors do well with it. But it also kind of drags the film’s narrative out a little.

By far the most fun performance came from Anahit Setian as Jackie who is a scientist that has been studying the stars and is the person that tells Kip and Tayler about the Deepstar. Setaian is brilliant in the film and adds a few moments of levity to a movie that seems to be taking things a little too seriously.

Olivier Gruner did an okay job as Dykstra with what he was given. Which was little more than to threaten, look a bit dangerous, and scowl. I found the villains a little flat and lifeless, to be honest. Given that it looked like the writers were trying to go for the sort of camp and over-the-top villains that we all got to enjoy in the 80s.

Overall

Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar fails to live up to the promise of a cheesy space adventure. The characters with a few exceptions. The story while not original had the potential for lots of comedy beats, which got missed entirely. If anything. For a movie that is obviously trying to riff off of such classic B-Movies as Battle Beyond The Stars etc. It fails miserably. The CGI was nothing much to look at and was slightly better than what was being done in the 90s on Babylon 5. But I was expecting that and fully prepared to embrace it. The problem was that it all took itself a little too seriously, which had me switching off now and then as I didn’t feel as invested as I wanted to be.

It’s a shame. Because I was really wanting for this film to entertain me, but it just missed the mark. The plot was okay but perhaps didn’t need the 90 minutes for it to play out. I think a combination of things let it down. Such as poor dialogue and direction choices. I’d have liked it better had they gone all in and embraced the potential comedic elements and went in for more over-the-top mustache-twirling villainy.

You can rent or Buy Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar from all good streaming sites.