Moon 44
Tags: cult, revenge, sci-fi

Plot synopsis:
By 2038, all of Earth's natural resources have been depleted. Multinational corporations have taken control of the galaxy and rival companies battle each other for access to mining planets. A major battle is for Moon 44, a fuel mining operation in the Outer Zone. It is the only installation still controlled by the Galactic Mining corporation. Moons 46, 47 and 51 have recently been overtaken by the Pyrite Defense Company's battle robots. Galactic Mining had its own defence system, helicopters capable of operating in the violent atmospheres of the moons, but it was cancelled as too many pilots died while in training. The company sends new navigators to Moon 44 to assist the pilots. However, there is still a shortage of pilots, so the company is forced to use prisoners. Galactic Mining regards its fleet of mining shuttles as even more important, so if the base is attacked, the shuttles are ordered to leave the crews behind.
Galactic Mining hires Felix Stone (Michael Paré), an undercover agent, to investigate the disappearance of two shuttles that went missing under mysterious circumstances. Stone travels to Moon 44 and meets chief navigator Tyler (Dean Devlin) who suspects the shuttles were stolen by somebody after they modified the flight computers. The mining operation's defence director, Major Lee (Malcolm McDowell) and his assistant, Master Sergeant Sykes (Leon Rippy) are the prime suspects. Stone later catches Sykes reprogramming a mining shuttle shortly before its departure. Sykes attacks Stone with an axe but is quickly gunned down by Lee, who then refuses to hand over the modified computer to Stone, citing "company orders".
Having concluded his investigation, Stone prepares to leave, but the mining operation is attacked by a Pyrite "Medusa"-class battle cruiser. Major Lee sabotaged the alarm systems and then orders all of the mining shuttles to return to Earth. Stone manages to singlehandedly shoot down the entire first wave of enemy attack drones, while prisoner O'Neal (Brian Thompson) stays behind to destroy the remaining drones as Lee's actions at the base are discovered.
Lee tries to sabotage the last remaining mining shuttle, but he is trapped in an elevator by Stone and blown up by his own bomb. The others return safely to Earth, where Stone informs the Galactic Mining Chairman (Roscoe Lee Browne) that Lee was bribed by Pyrite to redirect the mining shuttles to a planet in the Outer Zone.

Review: Look closely...It was Roland Emmerich's first genre movie before "Independence Day", and the two share the same flaws.
Yes, it is full of stereotypes and the end is cheesy, by "B-movie" standards, but it also has some good drama and an interesting mix of characters.
The main assets of the film are its visuals, they make for a totally believable outer space "mining" colony.
compared to other B movies,this one is great.Michael Pare is almost always a very charismic actor,in this movie he is at the top of form,cool story,cool guy,and over the top acting(thats what makes a great B movie).
As a long standing SF fan I was looking forward to it, despite it's low budget and the fact that the director's subsequent movies have been less than satisfactory.
The good points: The special effects are reasonable (although not great) and the set designs are excellent (quite reminiscent of Alien.) The bad points: Cliche after cliche hits you until you can't take it seriously.
Such a fine actor is wasted here.The plot holes are too numerous to mention here but there are lots and lots - probably about 44.There really isn't anything to like about this film apart from the average visuals.I advise you to give this one a miss and pick up a very similar but far superiour movie called 'Outland' starring Sean Connery and directed by Peter Hyams..
I recommend this to anyone looking for a quick, easy to get into, cheap sci-fi B-movie.
Moon 44 is one of those little sci-fi films which really slipped through the cracks during the 1980s and early 90s.
Sadly, these types of tales are nothing more than straight to video fodder with absolutely horrid acting, so this represents one of the last of the cool, dark sci-fi films.
The space ships are cool - though why the good guys only have helicopters is a puzzle.
The actors are either almost famous, or look hauntingly like people who are - I spent a lot of time wondering if I had seen them before (I hadn't it turns out).
Here is my review."Moon 44" is actually a good sci-fi flick.
The acting was good and especially from Michael Pare and Brian Thompson.
It's a good sci-fi film that is definitely worth a look!.
Now usually, I write drug dealer characters off in movies as low-down scumbags ...
Much like his characters in previous films ("Evil Ed" in Fright Night, "Hoax" in 976-EVIL, and "Wendell" in Fraternity Vacation spring to mind), he's a social outcast who used to get beat up regularly for just being a good guy.
Hearing Stephen Geoffreys' sweet voice telling his story to a semi-comatose inmate/pilot (to whom he had secretly given "two double whammys" as revenge for a friend's homosexual rape by another inmate/pilot), you actually feel a little sorry for him -- too bad he didn't give it to the creep who raped his friend!The movie itself runs a little slow overall, but for Stephen Geoffreys fans, it's a must-see.
Not a bad try,Yes it's a cheap B movie ..but its easy viewing and enjoyable..
I love any movies that have to do with Science Fiction, and are based in the future with unique settings.Well I'd like to say that I've seen Moon 44 and consider it a great movie.
You cannot have a Sci-Fi movie without cinematography.I consider the cinematography above average in Moon 44 because the director, even though on a short budget was able to create some neat scenery, of futuristic earth, space ships, fighter planes, the base itself and etc.
I felt like I was in the movie, in Neo Angeles 2019 AD and as the main character.
Moon 44 is a bad start for director Roland Emmerich and nobody-actor turned producer Dean Devlin (who later team up with one another to make the blockbusters: Stargate, Independence Day and Godzilla).The plot of this movie is really weak...
on a moon?) yes, helicopters, to protect their mining robots from theft, even though the ships are stolen IN SPACE while their on transit to Earth.
Since no reputable pilot wants the suicide job of defending the base, the convicts are given the opportunity to do the job for a reduced sentence.One convict is actually an undercover cop (Michael Paré) and his job is to infiltrate the mining complex and expose a traitor who is reprogramming the robot ships to never make it back to Earth.
The movie is filled to the brim, with bad acting, lame dialogue, dry characters, cheesy special effects (even for a 1990 film it looked more like something from 1980) and there is even some homoeroticism thrown in for good measure.
Not the sequel to Moon 43, as most folks would guess, but really a boring sci-fi flick set in the future, where rivals companies duke it out to control mineral sources in space.
One such company keeps losing shuttles (Huge machines that mine for minerals) to a rival company, so they get the big idea of sending ex-cons to man Moon 44's defence system, which is run by a bunch of geeks.
Additionally, the company send an internal affairs cop up there (as an ex-con) to find out exactly where some missing shuttles have gone up to, and therefore Moon 44 begins it's slow, soap opera like plot.Your ex-cons (including Brian Thompson of Hired to Kill) don't sit well with the geeks (including that guy from 976-EVIL), and head of the station, Malcolm McDowell (of Cyborg 3: The Recycler) tries to mediate between them both.
Add to this that everything looks like the director really, really likes Ridley Scott and James Cameron (the interiors are all Blade Runner and Alien like), complete with evil corporation, and you've got a film with plenty of set up and no pay off.
The bad guys, when they do appear, kind of look like Johnny Five if he'd turn to crack cocaine and flew off into space.
I can take bad effects and cheap sets, but the one thing I do not like in a film is nothing happening.
In fact one company is down to only one asteroid, the last stand will be made on Moon 44.You know if you're expecting a serious study on earth's dwindling resources and what I personally think will eventually happen, the strip mining of dead worlds for resources, Moon 44 ain't the film for you.
What we did get in between the giggles and the video game special effects was one of the great homo-erotic science fiction films of all time.The defense craft are these helicopter type ships that only crazy people like prisoners will fly in exchange for commutation of sentence.
But the brawny prisoners and they are all brawny believe me have other ideas about bonding with these twinks from space.Michael Pare is an internal affairs agent for the company going in undercover as a prisoner.
By 2038, the Earth's natural resources have been depleted; valuable minerals are now being mined on distant moons in the depths of space.
With their mines repeatedly coming under attack from rival company Pyrite, Galactic Mining send a group of convicted criminals and computer whizz kids to Moon 44, to train as fighter pilots and navigators.
Tough internal affairs cop Stone (Michael Paré) goes undercover with the prisoners to try and find out why the company's mining shuttles have been mysteriously disappearing.Six years before he scored a massive worldwide hit with alien invasion blockbuster Independence Day, Roland Emmerich helmed Moon 44, an extremely lacklustre sci-fi thriller that saw the director desperately attempting to imbue his film with a sense of style by ripping off the look and feel of Ridley Scott's classics Alien and Bladerunner.
However, some reasonable model effects, and an excess of fluorescent lighting, spurting steam vents, and slowly rotating ventilation fans do little to hide the fact that this is one hell of a dull film, with dreadful performances, terrible dialogue, unexciting action sequences, and characters that it's very difficult to give a damn about.Interestingly, it was shortly after appearing in this film that Stephen Geoffreys, who plays Moon 44's drug-dealer Cookie, left mainstream cinema to carve out a career in gay porn, making one wonder whether he found appearing in that kind of film less embarrassing than being in really bad sci-fi flicks like this one..
Really, really dreadful film combining the worst elements of teen movies, prison movies and low budget sci-fi.
Michael Pare stars as a soldier who infiltrates a group of prisoners used as pilots to find out who has been stealing shuttles and soon uncovers that the people in charge there are looking to destroy the base.
Michael Pare to me has always been hit or miss so while I quite enjoyed the amusing antics of such stupid (yet fun) movies like Instant Justice and World Gone Wild, I was expecting a level of magical dumbness that would make one gleeful of it's absurdities.
Among the cast are Michael Pare, Malcom McDowell and Brian Thompson all look bored with the material.
Lots of cliches, low budget not-really-action-scenes, and typical not-real-ending solution ala the Fortress movies.
I don't know why people who write reviews on this movie, are so grumpy!This movie was made in 1990, it says it has action, it has action, also it says it's a thriller, it keeps the viewers attention and it's sci-fi, thinking it has a low budget, you should expecting to see an Iron Man 3 sci-fi, it has little special effects but it compensates with the talent of the actors that you don't find in our days.I personally like this movie and I appreciated it, because it's an old one and a good one.I really don't regret that I've seen it, I'm glad, Michael Paré is a good actor and his role attitude is fantastic.I scored it a little higher 8 out of 10 i think is around 7.7 out of 10..
Great prequel to Independence Day. Surprise, surprise, as old pal Gomer Pyle used to holler when he found out something surprisingly pleasant - and Moon 44 is all that and more.Perhaps just the first teaming of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin makes this worthy enough to watch.
Devlin though, has no producing credits here, he plays future computer nerd Terry, the main assistant to the film's hero, Michael Pare.
It's made sweet and tasty by an interesting story of greed on a grand scale involving planets and resources, with some subtle commentary on prison abuse.There are comic book bad guys, and Runyonesque inhabitants, but this is some mining planet in some BFE solar system, and it needs a little character color to counter the bleak, dark existence portrayed on Moon 44.The story continually moves forward and will hold you to the screen for the entire length.
And just for fun, see how many cast you can find who played in later Emmerich/Devlin films.
fine early B-movie Roland Emmerich.
With an expected attack on Moon 44, Galactic Mining sends in young tech nerd navigators to guide helicopter pilots.
This is early B-movie Roland Emmerich.
I really like Sci-Fi movies, and this one had a promising plot, I thought.
Actually, in all fairness, I DO think that the movie started fairly well, with the exception of the horrible acting in the board room (wait a minute...
It's a shame too, because it COULD have been a nice, little Science Fiction film.The supposed 'Drama' that pads out this movie is honestly pretty bad.
The dialog was quite painful; even a veteran like Malcolm McDowell looked (and sounded) like he'd REALLY rather be somewhere else and I don't blame him.Basically, the setup and story are fine for a standard 'B' Sci Fi film.
Yes, if you like some movie and its (virtual) reality, you'd like to spend more of your time "in it", but you can do it creatively (invent your own sci-fi world, or your own story, or your own extrapolation of the story), but you don't copy everything word by word, scene by scene.
Roland Emmerich is good at copying movies, but I prefer cocktails like Indepenedence Day - where more famous movies and their features are blended into one VFX spectacle.
I loved this movie, if you're in the mood for a good laugh,it's definitely worth watching.
It could easily be a parody of a million other bad sci-fi movies.
Ignore everything about this movie except that it was the first meeting of B-Movie actor Dean Devlin and director and fellow sci-fi fan Roland Emmerich.From this meeting spawned a friendship, then a partnership, that created production company Centropolis Films, which in turn, created hit movies such as "Stargate", Independance Day", "Godzilla" and "The Patriot".Also look for actor and soon to be Centropolis regular Leon Rippy, featured in "Stargate", "The Patriot" and Centropolis produced TV show, "The Visitor"..
I personally didn't like this movie but that's o.k. But the acting was very good despite the fact that the movie was terrible.
Michael Pare stars as Internal Affairs agent Felix Stone who is sent undercover as a prisoner to Moon 44 to investigate missing shuttles.
This movie does try to steal a page or two from Ridley Scott in both BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN for its look, but with a capable cast and feeling engaged in the story makes this one worth my time.
Not even McDowell can summon up the effort to be interested in his lines and he can usually be counted on to have some fun with his roles.If you do watch this movie after reading the trashing it gets on the IMDb there are some rewards to be got from it.
It's one of those movies that lets you sit there and ask yourself questions like: What are the teenage whizz kid navigators actually FOR?
- The Charles Atlas Fight School of dynamic tension?).As it turns out, these guys ARE as thick as two short planks because, having been told that their lives are in the hands of their teenage navigators they seem to think it's a good idea to anally rape one of them in the shower.
Not clever.Other questions you might like to ask yourself include why ALL the doors in this movie give off huge spurts of steam every time they open, or close.
There is an awful lot of smoke in this movie.It also has that standard shot of space ship approaching planet.
Christ I was bored.If for nothing else I will be grateful for this movie for being so vacant of anything worth watching or caring about that it gave me time to think that one out.Worst Line: "I got fed up with talking to my French fries.".
Don't be fooled by Roland Emerich's name amongst the credits; this is truly a C-movie.The plot goes something like this.
That's 'Moon 44'.Like so many of these cheap (and not so cheap) movies, money seems to have been saved by not employing a lighting facility.
Moon 44 is a good B grade movie.
Moon 44 is a b grade sci-fi gem of a movie about in the year 2038 mineral resources on earth have ran out and different corporations are fighting for the last few planets and moons that have minerals on them.Nobody wants to man moon 44 because they are scared of being killed by people from other corporations but some convicts get sent to moon 44 to fly helicopters to defend it in exchange for some time of there sentences and with the convicts are some smart young men who navigate for them and an under cover agent who is there to try and find out who is hijacking the mining shuttles.The acting in this movie is OK and the best 2 actors in this movie are the OK actor Malcolm McDowell and the sort of OK actor from the OK movie Cobra and he plays one of the punks in the start of The Terminator.There is only one thing wrong with this movie like how most of the special effects are crap but this movie is a b grade movie so its OK that the special effects are crap.Over all if u are a fan of good b grade movies or sci-fi movies i think that u will really like this movie.And my rating for this movie is six out of ten..
Roland Emmerich doesn't make good movies.
And corridors - you can never have enough corridors with lots of PVC conduit.Second, Roland Emmerich saw Alien, Blade Runner, Blue Thunder (yes helicopters) and Star Wars and decided it'd be a great idea to smash elements of each of these into his movie.
He also likes prison rape, so he threw that in (yeah, really).The result is a movie that makes zero sense.
If you like bad movies, yes it is, but you have to be quite the masochist to subject yourself to this steaming heap..
and this piece of trash sure hasn't aged well.But even if this were opening day, this absolutely abysmal movie would still rank as one of the worst in history.It starts out with some of the worst acting I've ever seen, people sitting around a conference table at a major corporation.
I swear it looks like the director or producer just decided to cut costs and have his friends and family fill in for real actors.
One can really appreciate good acting when one sees the complete opposite.The worst, most ill-conceived character is the Sergeant aboard the space ship.
Maybe standards for movie making were more lax back then, but his was incomprehensible.All the characters are cartoonish, the acting is horrendous, and the amateurish "plot" is just an embarrassment to anyone who loves good movies.
This one insults our intelligence at every turn.As you probably know, this movie is about the (grim) future when we need to exploit space for raw materials.
Therefore, they need to find out what's going on, or the company will lose everything.That could be an interesting premise for a movie, but not the way it was done here.