The Dawnseeker (2018) — Triskaidekafiles

THE DAWNSEEKER

WRITER: Justin Price

DIRECTOR: Justin Price

STARRING: Franziska Schissler as Fenix
Alexander Kane as York
Jason Skeen as Otto
Khu as Zan
Alex Giuffreda as Jax
Leonard Jackson as Evo
Carl Bailey as Thane
Angelic Granger as Galen

QUICK CUT: A group of mercenaries wander around a jungle being hunted by an alien creature.

THE MORGUE

Fenix - A badass mercenary who has been hired to retrieve stardust.

Otto - A badass mercenary who has been hired to retrieve stardust.

York - A badass mercenary who has been hired to stop the others from retrieving stardust.

The Dawnseeker - A badass alien who fucks on the stardust.

Season five of Buffy summed up in one word.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We've come around once more to another movie by Justin Price, and I continue to question why I do this to myself. The 13th Friday actually had some promise, and Alien: Reign of Man was a mess, and his style was very clear, but here I am yet again, with The Dawnseeker. Another scifi epic where I am sure nothing coherent will happen.

The movie kicks off on Earth, 2248, with some problems with the sun getting ready to die. Earth is in bad shape, flooded horribly, and the last vestiges of humanity are fighting over credits and any means of survival. Oh and a substance called stardust.

Next we cut to a girl running from a government killbot wanting to kill her because she has some government property. And Fred 209 does that handily enough.

Another woman steps out of the shadows and takes the tech from the corpse. Fred 209 is about to blast her as well, but stands down because it recognises her. Oooh secrets.

This acquisition of government technology will play absolutely zero plot point at any time in the future.

She wanders around a bit, until she runs afoul of a group of cyberpunks, in a scene that is also pointless other than to show she is a total badass who can take on four guys in a rainstorm.

To be fair, the fight scene is actually pretty decent. I got no complaints aside from "sole purpose to show badassery" which I can at least appreciate on some level.

Suddenly we're on a spacecraft with our canon fodder for the movie, and we learn the woman's name is Fenix. Sigh. Really?

Some dude in a hilarious white spacesuit walks in to tell us about the Dawnseeker, one of the worst creatures the human race has ever met.

Isn’t this Quicksilver’s government approved X-Factor outfit?

And the reason they're transporting such a deadly creature, is because it hunts stardust like a little piggy digging for truffles. I am sure this won't go wrong at all.

Really the only notable character in this group is Stabby McBadass, Otto. Some of these losers don’t even make it off the ship. He likes knives, and he's rough and tough enough to having a passing semblance of a personality.

And we've gotten hints of it before, but at least we get that Justin Price hallmark of...passionate disinterest! Everyone wanders down to Dawnseeker Corleon's cell to stare at it for awhile. Because standing and staring is what these people do best.

Dude in white also says in his exposition, "And I don't have to tell you..." THEN WHY ARE YOU? Sigh.

There is then a, no joke, nearly 30 second flyby of their spacecraft. I am sorry, but you are NOT 2001

But then there is a brief attempt at action as apparently something is going wrong with the ship, and Fenix makes the slowest advancement possible to an escape pod.

We then get a flashback to Wee-nix being told by her father that she is more important than she realises, and she has a destiny. And this feels eerily similar to scenes with Zan in Reign.

The ship, and escape pods, crash on the planet they were heading towards anyways, so that's fortunate. And we find ourselves on Omia Prime, in the year 2298. ...Wait what? I thought this has only FELT like 50 years. What happened?

Fenix finds Otto under fire by guys in red attack suits, and slowly advance on them to overtake their position through force.

And all of this culminates in Fenix tossing a grenade off camera, and then the tiniest most laughable CGI explosion goes off. Geeze gang, if you're gonna do a CGI boom, go big or go home.

Freeze! Don't move! Or I'll fill you full of... little yellow bolts of light!

Amidst the chaos, we meet another badass who puts our previous badass to shame, named York. They ask about where everyone is from, and there's some nonsense about Beta 4? Or is it Earth? Or not? What is this crap?

We also find out that they were never meant to leave this planet. But then why are they trying to save the sun? This makes no sense.

They find a corpse of someone from the ship, white spacesuit guy I guess? And Fenix determines it is a 'perfect kill' as a message to them.

York gives up some info on the planet, until they see a shitty CGI flare go up from Jax and Evo, two other crewmembers who are probably gonna be dead soon.

Evo wanders off, gets attacked, and soon they are gassed, and stare at nothing for a good lone while, because heaven forbid something happens.

Soon, Evo gets blasted with something and flies off into the sky, in more fun hilarity of special effects. The crew wants to find him, and Otto wants to find stardust, but York just wants to reach the space arc. If you say so!

Oh and then Jax reveals that Fenix is...the boss's daughter! A princess! Gasp, surprise, don't care.

Fenix is ready to leave, but Otto threatens her with a gun to go find Evo, because he has the transponder for the space ark. And he wants to get paid, because he...oh...oh there it is. He didn't travel 50 years for nothing. So there's time dilation, or hibernation or SOMEthing. I've missed that each time I've watched this thing until now.

They do finally find Jax, who is in bad shape, and get his transponder before he bites it, and they can move on.

Harvey dent was doused with chemicals today…

We next learn while wandering that stardust can only be found where Dawnseeker Trumps breed, they come in pairs, and they go their to rut amongst the mineral.

Jax wanders off, and is grabbed by...oh good lord, it's Khu. Well, I figured she's show up eventually, as she does in all of these.

But then they see a random creature that hilariously wanders off camera and the last bit of its leg just stands there. Nice editing. But then there's ANOTHER creature, and I guess the Dawnseeker is revealed.

Would you look at this dollar store Predator motherfucker.

Jax and Khu talk for a bit, and she asks about Terminus, surprised it hasn't wiped out Earth yet and ...OHHH MY GOD is this a squawking sequel to Reign of Man? It IS. It is a sequel! Oh holy potatoes.

But then Zan disappears, and leaves Jax to her inevitable fate to get stabbed through the gut by the Dawnseeker.

Suddenly, the rest of our loser squad are surrounded by a bunch of pointless deaths to come, and their leader, Thane of the Black Suns.

The Black Suns cuff the group, and...suddenly there's an eclipse, because why not? And that's when the Dawnseeker Karnage shows up to wreak more havoc, as everyone yells and shoots at stuff off camera.

After the Dawnseeker takes care of everyone without a personality or name, we get more staring at nothing, and lots of babble about solar fields! Space arks! Pulse waves!! If you say so!

That's when Zan wanders back into the movie, and they mention she's the 'last of the eternals' so we are just dropping lots of references, along with her destroying Demo. All of which is meaningless garbage unless you saw the OTHER movie full of meaningless garbage.

I am starting to have serious reservations about this Flashpoint movie.

Which is a good time for the Dawnseeker to return, after randomly wandering away before, I guess so there could be a calm scene.

Then all of a sudden...HILARIOUSLY OVER THE TOP EPIC MUSIC DROP. Pffff.

So the last survivors wander around some more, and we get a few twists, such as Fenix set the Dawnseeker free because this was all some plan, and oh, Zan is her sister. Gasp shock yawn.

Sister? She's supposed to be your sister?

"The space ark is a ripple in time..." "In order to save Earth, you have to save the sun on the other side of the ark." "The Earth will exist in another ideal of time." IF YOU SAY SO.

So the Dawnseeker Duck closes in, and Thane sacrifices himself to buy them time to get to the space ark. And then York announces that without a transponder, you can't cross the magnetic fields of the space ark...if you say so!

He takes his out and breaks it, and then kills Otto, because he was an opportunistic prick who was only there for the money. This leaves Fenix and Zan to complete their mission, and York to play Bait 2: the Sequel. With a little help from the bleeding Otto.

The Dawnsneaker shows up to beat up the boys, York gets flung across the field so hard a cigar appears in his mouth. He then lights it, even though it is ALREADY LIT, and we get to watch him put it in and out of his mouth for a good five minutes.

While that fight wraps up as expected, we cut back to the girls, and Zan says she thought the sun wouldn't be a concern until 2240! But it's 2245! BUT YOU SAID IT WAS 2298!! AFTER SAYING IT WAS 22 *48*!!!

This plot is made up, and time is meaningless.

And I thought everyone was fighting over and selling stardust? How will it save the sun? Why do we have to go on a 50 year trip to another planet to get a rock that fits in a pickle jar, to save the sun? Why does the sun need to be saved on the OTHER side of the space ark? WHY??

But they finally find the space ark, a hastily cobbled together bit of metal framework that wishes it was a stargate, and glowing purple.

"This isn't just a gateway...it's a time machine!" BASED ON WHAT?? If you say so! I guess!!

Fenix jumps through the portal, and Zan stays behind to fight it. And as if I wasn't already throwing my hands in the air already, Fenix is suddenly going all Braveheart with blue facepaint and fighting a naked second Dawnseeker.

BECAUSE AT THIS POINT WHY THE HELL NOT.

Doctor Strange wants his special effects back.

Why does she need to dirty up her hands to get stardust? Why does she need to go all Braveheart bullshit to get stardust? WHAT IS THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS??

Zan shows up to end the fight, and suddenly they're on a spaceship, wherever THAT came from, and Fenix is marveling at ANOTHER chunk of stardust she finds on the ship.

"I've never seen this type before!" Then how do you know it's the right stuff!!

Zan also reveals she brought the stardust with her, SO WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS IF YOU HAD STARDUST??

So Zan had a ship, with stardust, PURE stardust! and we've been running around doing...what for the last 80 minutes??

Mercifully, the movie ends there as they prep to fly into the sun and save it, I guess? That was a waste of time, a miasma of plot that went nowhere, and just...a confounding mess. Both made clearer AND murkier at the same time by having seen both movies.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Looks pretty good, as it should for a movie that came out just a couple years ago.

Audio: Got some decent use of the soundscape.

Body Count: A whole lotta death, but so much of it is nameless canon fodder.

1- Just under 2 minutes and Fred 209 guns down a kid
2 - One of the cyberpunks gets stabbed repeatedly by Fenix and shot up.
3 - A red guy gets shot by Fenix after she crashes.
4 - And another.
5 - One red guy gets paintballed in the face.
6 - Another gets blasted in the chest.
7 - Fenix snaps another's neck
8 - Kills another with her CGI grenade, I’m guessing
9 - Fenix blasts a guy in white
10 - Otto shoots another red
11 - Galen is found dead.
12 - Evo goes splat
13 - The Dawnseeker spears Jax
14 - One of the Black Suns gets necksnapped by Dawny
15 - Dawny stabs another Black Sun man
16 - Black Sunner gets shot
17 - Another Black Sun man gets got
18 - Khu takes someone out
19 - York gets blasted by the Dawnseeker
20 - Khu stabs the Dawnseeker and kills it I guess.
21 - Fenix hacks off the head of another.

I probably missed a few in the chaos.

Best Corpse: Since most of them are disposable, the biggest death of note is Evo, with that nice icky splotch on his face.

Blood Type - C+: Not some bad bits of blood scattered throughout, especially the aforementioned Evo. And as much as I make fun of the overall look, and while it’s just a simple rubber mask, the Dawnseeker’s head is neat.

Drink Up! Every time I typo Foenix in this review.

Movie Review: Do I even need to get into this? The story is slightly less confusing than Reign of Man, as long as you ignore the technobabble. Off to get a thing, Dawnseeker rampages, kill it and get the macguffin. And while there is still a bunch of blathering nonsense, it is less important to the plot this time around, and just there for flavour and atmosphere. The production values are pretty good, even. It’s well shot, and Justin Price makes the most out of a little. But being a bit languid and confounding in the details, really bring it down. But I see improvement, and I can’t deny it is at least constructed well. Three out of five solar fields.

Entertainment Value: This is a tough call. A double feature with this and Reign of Man is rough to get through, but with friends, it is totally worth it. I do NOT recommend watching solely this movie, if you’ve never seen Reign of Man. I have watched both movies enough times, they’re starting to make sense, and I should be concerned. The characters aren’t THAT bad, the action is well shot, when it’s not being directed at things off camera. The confounding headaches detract a bit, but it’s worth it just to see that this thing exists. Three out of five metal lanterns to put your stardust in.