User reviews

I gave this B movie a chance because the trailer made it look like Sunshine or Event Horizon, but it's nothing like that. The characters talk for about an hour like a cheap TV show until something finally happens. The first 40 min could have easily been cut. But even after a little action finally happens, then it's back to more talking until the end of the movie. The trailer only shows that 5 minutes where something actually happens. But the actual movie is just people talking. The special effects are obviously bad, but they do the job. The actors are okay but the problem is that the script is awful. The plot is just not interesting and just tries to recycle better films. This is advertised as horror-sci-fi but it's not scary or even tense, there's just nothing happening, and even when you think something has happened, the big reveal is lame. It's more of a drama-sci-fi. Better just rewatch Event Horizon or Sunshine instead.

Remember Sunshine (2007), where people are dying on a spaceship that was on a suicide mission to save humanity? More specifically, remember that part where they decide that they should take a detour from their mission to do something that wasn't on the schedule. Now, think about how that movie would have played out if they didn't make that stop? Kinda boring, right? But it made sense somewhat... the detour had a rational justification. I mean, it wasn't like Aline, where some off-camera mega corporation was moving in the shadows searching for a super weapon. It wasn't like 2001, where a transistor just happened to fail. Nor like Ad Astra, where ... gee wiz there's a ship floating out there... we have to stop and see if they need help... alright... I don't want to make any spoilers. Let's just say if you are counting the number of space-mission films that rely on the old "unplanned encounter" with a broken down ship was the entire catalyst for the drama, then you might run out of fingers and toes to count them on. And once you see this formula presenting itself, it's time to tune out the movie because what you guess is going to happen is probably going to happen. And don't forget Event Horizon... when somebody looks like they are cracking up in space, what you guess is going to happen is also probably going to happen. This old saw has been making the rounds since John Carpenter put it to good use in the satirical low budget cult film "Dark Star". Well, The Last Scout is basically Dark Star in reverse, and I think it's safe to say that the actors took their roles about as seriously as those who plied their craft in 1974 for a laugh.

First to say, this is not a new 'Sunshine' (2007), nor 'Pandorum' (2009) . If you want one of those, you have to look elsewhere.

The basic story is quite similar though - a spaceship, here not so big, and with only a few people on board, searching for the last resort of mankind , while earth herself is nearly destroyed. The main difference to 'Sunshine' and 'Pandorum' is the amount of bloodshed, and also the budget, which was approx. a tenth of each of the former's.

It may be true that the first 40 minutes are a bit hard to overcome for the average sf-action lover. There we learn to know the crew, which is a bit of a family since they are now together for seven years, as we are told. The movie takes it's time to establish a certain mood of day-life, instead of bringing up severe conflicts or delusions and problems immediately. That's OK, if you ask me, I do sometimes like a more lifelike approach. And who, when not astronauts, should be able to live through such a long journey ?

When the ship encounters the derelict ship, as described in the story-line, the movie gains momentum as it should, and it doesn't lose it until the end, providing enough tension and action for a rainy evening in front of the flat-screen. Acting is solid, directing and special effects are OK for a Direct-to-Video or Video-On-Demand production (which I assume it is).

As the budget may dictate, 'The last scout' cannot claim to be special or outstanding, like said examples, and it doesn't want to. Instead, it tells its story, and this is where it looses some stars, the story ingredients are too much copied from those other movies, minus a certain amount of their violence, to be suitable for families, I think. It would have taken only a bit of time to form a more creative and interesting solution within the premises, at least avoiding said big models. So, for the SF veteran, the outcome and the explanations toward the end are a bit disappointing.

I can give the movie yet 6/10, as 5 would be too low in my eyes.

It starts off watchable, albeit dull. When the low budget sfx for the outside of the ship and space look superior in realism to the inside of the ship, it is not hard to imagine that is only the beginning of the problems. I like sci fi movies, and I take the leap of the parameters they set up. This movie, though, just gets moronic. There are way too many times were this future spaceship doesn't even have the same obvious tech that was present a long time before today. Then, in the last 15 minutes or so, the movie just collapses at it tries to get the ending it wants when it had already painted itself into a different corner.

Oh my, if the acting was any more cardboard they could have done this with puppets and frankly it probably would have been better! This is so boring that a fast forward button is an absolute necessity. The special effects are so bad that taking your glasses off (if you have the benefit of them) can dramatically improve the watchability! The sets are so 'high school' video project that I suspect that is exactly who made them. The script writer should have been gagged and silenced although I suspect that the original story would have been good in print? At times the conversations are cringeworthy, so bad that a volume control should be hand at all times. In short, you WILL NOT get the time back that you waste on this but, you will probably appreciate a few other bad movies a lot more based on your experience. Yeuch. Just so bad it is really yeuch.

This is just awful. They clearly had a budget of $15 for special effects. Bad acting, bad writing.

Wow, just all round poor attempt at storing telling. So many plot holes, not even worth watching just to fill in time. Give this a big miss.

It's underrated and that's what I enjoyed about this film. Give it a chance. It's not perfect but it's not awful neither.

A pretty decent space thriller. The atmosphere and script were good, though at times the acting was a bit over the top. The sound quality was weird at times, echoey and hard to understand.

Decent special effects but some props like the control panel were pretty bad ... like someone taped a bunch of iPads to it with abstract images being displayed, decided it didn't look "spacey" enough, and attached some obnoxiously flashing lights which obviously had no purpose beyond flashing constantly.

The plot was fairly well developed, and neither innovative or derivative. It was interesting enough to keep me watching it, but not very memorable. Basically a decent way to kill a couple hours.

The special effects are ok (ok.. not good) for a low budget movie, but the plot and the screen play is unacceptable. The plot is simply pointless. Definitively the worst sci-fi movie I have ever watched.

One of the most boring movies i have ever had the displeasure to wear my TV out on watching. So bad it wasn't funny! the actual acting wasn't too bad but Geez the cinematography!, the cockpit looked like a gray box with some 7" tablets as instrument panels with flashing lights all the same color on it! I wish i hadn't watched the thing now!

As for inside the ship! oh my god! probably the best way to describe it is it was done on a budget of $50

Don't waste your time!

The interior of the spaceship looks like that of an old ship from the 1920s. Hundreds of useless screens everywhere and a central computer capable of doing almost anything, not even translating Chinese. In the dashboard hundreds of LEDs light up at random indicating nothing: this was tolerable in a SciFi movie of the 60s, but not in a scifi of today! In the plot choices made at random and without logic, especially in the final. The last 30 minutes a delirium!

The music and sound effects running in background of the whole movie so noise and loud. So i watched with subtitle do understand what the movie about.

While the plot was interesting, the technical problems with this movie make it nearly unwatchable in the print used on Amazon Prime. Dialog recording is practically intelligible for far too many scenes and the CC is not synced as a alternative. For a movie that clearly had financing for CGI, releasing it like this is inexcusable. What a waste.

Really slow plot with some awful acting and terrible sound levels. Could do better.

This is my first movie review because I think it should be higher and worth a watch. I love the Sci-Fi movies… 5th Element, Star Wars, Aliens, Star Trek (Not TOS) etc. I do not like B rated ones because I expect some good special effects and props. I like a movie to have more scenery then a small control panel on a ship. This movie had several sets and some nice scenes of space. The effects were nice and the plot was easy to follow. It was well edited, flowed and left a little to the imagination at the end. Ignore the lower user reviews, they are more of a pompous one sided I know everything about movies look. Complaining that it is not like other movies. It isn't like other movies. Even the two real critics that reviewed it liked it. The acting was well done and I really thought they pulled off the dialog. If a Sci-Fi movie is worth watching it is over a 5. If it is really entertaining it gets a 7/8.. If you put 5th element and Aliens on the 10 side this movie comes in with an 8 easily.

For a low budget movie, this film had great acting, an understandable plot, and believable dialogue -- for the first half of the film. The cinematography was very good considering the budget, except it was often way too dark, probably to hide the lousy sets. The score was pretty good, too. But those sets and props, wow, pretty bad. Clothes dryer vents hanging from the ceiling, and the crew was wearing 3M respirators freshly painted over with shiny spray paint and snow boots for their spacesuits. And the ship was held together with tapered wood screws!

Okay, they couldn't afford props. But as I said the acting was well above what you normally see in these cheap films. Plus there was actual character development -- the audience really got to know who those folks were on that spaceship. With real, natural dialogue.

But about midway through the film, it completely falls apart. It's like two different people wrote the first and second half of this film. It starts off as really great straight science fiction movie with a real, consistent plot and characters. Then halfway through, it turns into a snuff film. And the plot scenarios just kept getting more and more ridiculous -- one improbably situation after another. And in the second half of the film, none of the behaviours of the characters had any motivation or grounding in reality, whereas in the beginning, their actions were consistent with their characters and the situations they faced.

Another great thing about this film was that it was very progressive on race. This very small set of characters included a black man, and he had a romantic relationship with one of the (white) female astronauts. There wasn't any hint of derision or bias that I could detect. I'm adding a couple of points to my rating for this fair treatment of race.

My recommendation is to watch the first half of this film until they have the code orange. (It's explained in film -- it happens about half way through.) After that, just turn it off, and write your own ending. It has to be better than what they did to the second half of this film.

triggers: gory depictions of corpses; gory violence; gun (laser) violence

rating 7/10 (for the first half); (submitted July 5, 2020, 1:55 a.m. EDT)