Astro is about a billionaire (Marshal Hilton) whose company finds an alien, and when they sequence its DNA, discover it's related to a human who used to serve in the military with him, the one and only Gary Daniels. Now he needs to get Gary to join him, but unlike the real world where people seem to love billionaires, at least in movies people are still suspicious of them, and Daniels is right to be, because this man has ulterior motives. He sends a goon squad to take Daniels and his daughter out, and when that doesn't work, Daniels infiltrates the company compound to the bottom of things. Just wait till he meets the alien!
This is pretty unremarkable, which was probably a big reason why I didn't review it sooner. The thing is, it wasn't like it was bad, just unremarkable. It's definitely made on the cheap, and it's definitely made quickly, which isn't the worst thing, but it has a complicated plot with a lot of backstory and moving parts, and that results in a lot of exposition and padding. The film did a good job in replacing that exposition with actual scenes instead of explanations through dialog, but the problem was there was a lot there to catch us up on, and a lot of it had to do with the billionaire guy instead of Gary Daniels, even though Daniels was our star. The film also sets up for a sequel that it doesn't look like is happening, and that leaves us with this open ending that doesn't resolve anything. I think at least if we had had a more definitive ending, the other flaws would've been forgiven, but we didn't, so ultimately I was left with a lot of blah, which, as I said above, isn't exactly bad, but it isn't good either.
This is now 59 films for Daniels at the DTVC, second only to Dolph's 70. I looked at his IMDb bio between 2015 and now, and there aren't a lot of projects, just 12 feature films--compared to Dolph's 25+--and of that, only 10 really fit what we're doing on the site. What that tells me is Daniels is being more selective in what he chooses, evidenced too by the fact that only Zero Tolerance and Dancin' It's On are smaller parts. With that in mind, I have to assume that Astro looked better on paper than it was in execution. While we here at the DTVC have always leaned more toward Mitch at the Video Vacuum's tenet of quantity of quality, if Daniels is going in the other direction, I can appreciate it. But this film shows where that quality over quantity can split both ways, because we get a more engaged, fuller Daniels performance here, but is this better than three smaller parts in some Jesse V. Johnson or Daniel Zirilli actioners? It's an interesting question, both for him as an actor, and us as fans, which would we rather have too?
The writer, director, and producer of this film was Asif Akbar, and while this is the first time we've done one of his films on the site, we have seen some of the films he's produced on the podcast, including Phoenix (speaking of Daniel Zirilli) and The Weapon. As a director and producer, he's working with some bigger names that are familiar to fans of the site, like Michael Jai White, Mickey Rourke, and Art Camacho, but in looking at his bio, this was the first film he did with a lot of recognizable names in it. I think it's always cool to see where people start out in the business, and how they grow and move up. As much as this film may have its shortcomings, I do respect that for Akbar it was just another step in the journey. It'll be interesting to see what we get next from him, but in anticipation of more of his films coming to the site in the future, I've given him a tag.
I could get into the fact that we have more from Dominique Swain, or that this is 12 films for Louis Mandylor and 17 for Michael Pare, but there isn't much to say about their roles other than they were there, and they did well enough. So why then do I have a screen of Gianni Capaldi? Well, one, he finally got his own tag with this being his fifth film on the site; and two, one of those previous four was one of the most egregious bait-and-switches in the history of the site, the Dolph film Ambushed. That film came out in 2013, and it feels like the DTV world has only become more cynical since then, especially with the explosion of streaming. For distributors it's less about putting out good content, and more about what it will take to get us to stream something. EFO created the blue print, and so many others in the business are jumping onboard. If I can say one thing about this film, it at least feels like an earnest attempt, and I'll take that all day over a film like Ambushed that sold us on one thing, and gave us something entirely different.
Finally, as we do with all members of the 50 Club, Daniels is getting a second paragraph. Where we go next with him is anyone's guess. The Gardener would be a good pick for number 60, the problem is it's only available to rent on Amazon. How is that one not on Tubi yet? From there he has his Christian films, The Mark: Redemption and Encounter: Paradise Lost, which, we have done the first Mark movie, so it's not totally outside the realm of possibility, but do I want to do a Christian film for his entry into the 60 Club? That might mean that he sits on 59 for a while, which, from an actor standpoint, Cynthia Rothrock is 17 behind him with 42 films, so it's not like he'll be passed anytime soon, but with Dolph having at least one film coming out this year, but potentially two, he's going to keep expanding his all-time lead with the most ever. Back to that quantity over quality debate.
And with that, let's wrap this up. This has been on Tubi since I first watched it back in 2020, and I have a hunch if someone sees this review ten years from now it will still be on Tubi. For me it's really about watching and reviewing another Gary Daniels flick, and if you're a fan of him, this is worth it from that standpoint.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6156656
And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.
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