Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine (2017)

I saw this on Tubi, and with Casper Van Dien and Cynthia Rothrock on the tin, plus the great James Lew, I figured this could be a fun time. Of course, whenever I think something is just going to be a good time, if often isn't, isn't it? So here's to hoping that it is instead of it isn't.

Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine is an adventure as bold as the size of its title, starring Casper Van Dien as the eponymous hero--or at least the name at the end of the long title eponymous. He's a former decorated soldier from earth who is disgraced after he attacks his own ships to help an alien woman escape. Now a hired mercenary, he's helping a troop of soldiers from another planet rescue their prince and princess who were captured and taken to a far away land. Along the way, they encounter all manner of evil beings looking to trip them up, plus everything with the prince and princess and their captor isn't what it seems. The only constant is we know Casper Van Dien is the man, and he knows how to get stuff done. (And wasn't Cynthia Rothrock in this?)

The IMDb user reviews of this were pretty harsh, and I feel like this is earnest enough that it doesn't deserve that. For me, this would have been a fantastic syndicated TV show in the late 90s, and I would've watched it between Hercules and Beastmaster episodes. As a movie, I'm not so sure. I loved a lot of the costumes and the creations for the aliens, but then James Lew's as the baddie with half his head taken off looked gross to me, so it was like it took away from that. Casper Van Dien as the rogue hero was fantastic, but because we had so many characters, we lost him for periods, and he was really underpinning the whole thing--especially since we lost Lew with his half-head costume, and Rothrock was only in it at the very end. The other thing was, I think between Van Dien and the budget for the costumes and the alien make-up, the budget wasn't what you'd want in the special effects department, and that betrayed a lot of what this was going for--again, something in a late 90s syndicated TV show we'd forgive, but maybe not as much in a sci-fi flick from 2017.

Casper Van Dien has become a favorite here at the DTVC--in part because in the past he's retweeted, reposted, and replied to my social media posts about our reviews of his films, which is always appreciated. In the last film we saw him in Showdown in Manila, we talked about how his roguish good guy totally stole the show from the guy who was supposed to be the lead, Alexander Nevsky. Here he's not stealing the show from anyone here, he's meant to anchor the whole thing, and I think he does as great a job as he did in Showdown. We need to get more of his stuff up here, because whether the film works or not, he seems to always be great in it, which is all you can ask for.

Again, I think the problem is we lose him because we have a lot of intrigue going on on the baddie end of things, and that's where a James Lew without half his head missing could have really been the Yang to Van Dien's Yin--or would he be the Yin to Van Dien's Yang? A good baddie really makes it in films like this, and we've seen Lew on the DTVC do many great turns as the baddie, and from my experience he does a better job with the top half of his head intact. I also noticed that it's been almost a decade since we've seen him, so it's too bad that we actually don't get to see him here, meaning I need to find something else he's been in so we actually get a chance to see him again.

Cynthia Rothrock, the film's one Hall of Famer, is in this for a tiny bit at the very end. It's enough for her to get a tag, but when it comes to doing Rothrock films here at the DTVC, we won't count it as a Rothrock post, so we won't move some of the ones where she has a starring role further down the list because of it. I think the idea is this is supposed to be a series of films, and as such, she would come in and reprise this character in a bigger way later. Just because Rothrock's role was scant, that doesn't mean the female action talent in this was overall. We had Brit Laree as one of the soldiers from the prince and princess's plane working with Van Dient; Sarah N. Salazar as the princess; and then Holly Westwood as alien woman Van Dien saves who now works with him. All three of them were great and it would be cool to see what they do going forward in the DTV action sphere.

I'm going to use this last paragraph to talk about the exceedingly long name this film has. We always joke about the number of two-word titles in the DTV world, but now with social media and the different ways we chat about movies online, shorter titles help in a lot of ways. One, they're easier to remember--if this were either just "Star Raiders" or "Saber Raine," I would know exactly what it is to tell anyone else I'm chatting with about it; but two, when I need to post about this review on social media, I'm stuck writing this seven-word title on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. When I look at all the reviews I have lined up after this, even the sequels don't have as many words in the title. Just like I prefer an 88-minute movie or less, I like a nice small title too.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. This isn't horrible, and I think the fact that it is an earnest effort helps. The other thing that helps is the great Casper Van Dien performance. Overall, it takes me back to those 90s syndicated TV shows I loved, but that may or may not work for you. The fact that it's free on Tubi also helps--the only thing you're out is your time.

For more information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039380