mmevanille-53097 This is a piece of comedy gold. Unfortunately none of the cast stuck around to make a sequel to this madness.We see from the very beginning what kind of quality movie it is. Looking at the 5 minute long credit sequence ( for a cast of about 6 people), the blaring one man band electric guitar. He found a good riff and by god he is gonna stick with it.... over and over and over...... But he does find other riffs through the film, which he repeats over and over and overWe are introduced to the 'dinosaurs' early on. Hard to really know what they are as they seem a combination of sock puppets and images recorded by holding a cam to the screen of old movies, saving them as a .bmp, jumping on photoshop and getting that auto-select option, paste them into the film and move them from side to side. What you get is just a pixelated mess. Even the 'actors' ( mostly a bunch of hunched hooded smudges waving at the camera) glide across screen in 8 bit Nintendo graphics style pixellisation.We then get a series of cut scenes of random shapes and colours, pylons, more sock puppets, and vague non descriptive backgrounds. If it wasn't for the narrator, there would be no sense whatsoever. I'm guessing it was about a futuristic arena or something.Then we have a discussion between monsters/aliens or something. I dont really know because in 'digitizing' their voices, there is no way it can be deciphered. Its just electronic incomprehensible drivel and muttering. Then suddenly you hear a word or two that can be understood. Some is subtitled, but its spoken too quick and the plot is so convoluted that its impossible to follow unless you watch it more times than any sane person would. After about 3 minutes of Alien conversation I realized trying to understand the plot was a mission in hopelessness and relied on the narrator to make sense of it. But I wasn't going to give up and press that all too alluring skip forward button. Some other points of this gem ( Too many to mention really )The camera zooms into random spots. Spots on the floor, Spots on the wall. Sometimes its chicken bones or coral. Sometimes its a rock. But most of the time it seems completely random. You cant tell what they are or why they are important, but hey his camera had a zoom option so why not use it? The editor also left in some great lingering shots of these red smudges on the wall, which I appreciated. The one of two human-like guy's who do have lines ( The newzealander ), and the only character who can be understood is badly dubbed with the speech not matching his words.The other makes Tommy Wiseau and Adam Baugh seem like real talents; his accent changes whenever there is a new scene or is monotone and he mumbles. He also looks stoned the whole movie. But we do get some lovely split second shots of him standing there like a plank staring into nothing, which is nice because he is a real looker (he isn't) Sometimes his makeup is so overdone that he looks like a zombie but it could also have been overuse of lighting. Because all the 'actors' were probably filmed in blue screen or something, they change heights and perspectives in each scene. Of course you can see their outlines, sometimes an arm is edited out or they turn invisible for a second.... great stuffMovie stops when the narrator speaks, and you get some nice images of... err..... things, some which bellow smoke at inconsistent speeds. Actually these cut scenes make up about 30% of the film. I cant judge the plot or do a spoiler alert because I am not exactly sure what happened; Something about finding some rare alien dinosaur to fight in the arena. Somewhat redeeming qualitiesFor a low budget film costume and props are not terrible. They are still bad, but are not terrible.The Lighting guy did some good work on some scenes. Most was filmed in a cave, and he tried to reflect every different colour light off every surface he could. The editor took this and it was like crack, as he stuffed as many of these into the production cycle as the time limit would allow, about 200 or so cut scenes. I guess they also hired a smoke machine, which was used almost every scene. Big budget. Some nice shots of the forest. Nice as in a welcome break from the rest of the film. Not nice in that although the cameraperson knew how to zoom, he/she certainly didn't know how to focus.I've been on a bit of a bad movie binge at the moment, and this is worse than Birdemic. This is by far the worst movie ever made. It is basically what happens if a stoner film student with a basic knowledge of photoshop and an interest in Asimov, hires a smoke machine and some party lights, calls his dealer and ten of his stoner buddies to do a magic mushroom hunt near a cave, whips out his camera on his phone and starts making a film. Takes it back to his dorm to do some 'editing' while still under the influence.To be honest if you watched an hour of 4 chords strummed on an electric guitar repeatedly while getting bombarded with random colours changing rapidly, it wouldn't be far removed from this. Its not as funny as Birdemic but its still worth a laugh until your ears bleed.

PiggyEternal Actium Maximus will be my first review because it's the film that led me to IMDb to begin with... I found this movie so uniquely bizarre that I was curious to see other's thoughts, and kept coming back to IMDb ever since. Reviews I've read here and on various blogs have led to many a belly-laugh, even if their words were cruel and at the expense of a movie that I happen to like a lot! Consider the title of one of the other reviews here: "This Movie Is Distilled Pain"! It cracks me up every time- it's funny how the negative reviews often contain plenty of humor while the good reviews rarely do. However, another reviewer also gets props for acknowledging that there are in fact people out there who can totally dig a film like this... I am one of those people and finally made an account at IMDb in part to defend 'Actium Maximus'!First let me say that I fully understand the faults people list with this movie: The spoiler is that there is no spoiler- you watch the entire film to get a sudden "To be continued..." What?? Why wasn't I warned on the box that there's no ending! Then there is no plot beyond the basic setup: On a planet in some galaxy a box-thing rules with an iron fist and the populace is kept distracted with fights involving different races of "dinosaurs". Creatures called Laffrodites protest and wage guerrilla wars against the dictator. That's pretty much it. Another clear fault here is that there is no protagonist- the main character (played by writer/director Mark Hicks) Jaciniun Axcesun- the only human character in the film besides his female assistant Pratalls- is just a lackey for the Grand Automaton. The only good guys, the oppressed Laffrodites, are just ginseng roots that don't speak... even if there were scenes with rebel leader Arch Briton Sustinuce, he has no face or voice so we would not really be able to relate to him beyond his plight. Then there are the effects which come off as a mix of low budget effects from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's when they are in fact from the 2000's! Finally a critical flaw: The dinosaurs never fight! They walk around or bob up and down with gore in their mouths, but we never actually see the action PROMISED IN THE MOVIE'S TITLE! Those are probably the main ailments here. Ah, let's not forget that when Jaciniun visits the "dinosaur holding pens" you can actually see monkeys swinging on poles in the background and realize they shot this scene at the zoo!The good: Honestly this is not a film I would ever put on with some guests to watch during prime time, unless it's just one other person and you've both been smoking the wacky to- baccy. I have probably watched Actium Maximus a hundred times, but this is usually in the wee hours alone and I have definitely not seen the ending as many times as the beginning, as I usually doze off before then. And that's the point here: This movie is dream-like... honestly, besides the first Star Wars film and T.V.'s Land of the Lost (the 70's one) there are not all that many movies that make me feel like I am really somewhere else- a place outside of this reality. Actium Maximus achieves that in my opinion, which as the above-mentioned reviewer pointed out is really enjoyed by a small group of people out there. Jaciniun's spaceship, the weird creatures that he talks to at the holding pens, the asymmetrical yellow and lavender "dinosaur"- these are some of several elements here that come off as very otherworldly and not like the endless generic stuff coming out of Hollywood. I think the guy doing the expository voice-over at the beginning does a brilliant job of sounding totally comfortable with the completely bizarre script he is reading and makes it all the more believable. I also like the "dinosaur" names like Belatonus, Titanodon, Dhezeron, Lexiagon, Retarisaurus, etc. and the fact that they are shipped in from different planets.Lastly I will mention the soundtrack, which I have seen people complement even after tearing the film itself apart- I think the score is catchy and adds to the film's atmosphere. There's a synth and piano theme repeated throughout the film which has an epic rock opera sort of feel. then we get sort of Ministry type industrial metal, and then there's plenty of 80's guitar metal shredding with an accompanying piano! Hopefully Mark gets a little satisfaction seeing that a lot of people like his music even if they didn't like the movie.So there you go- most people will surely find Actium Maximus un-watchable, but I'll take this over the generic cgi sh*t-show that comes out of Hollywood any day. Movies are art, and the conventional faults listed in the first part of the review are irrelevant for those who can appreciate this kind of otherworldly weirdness. You know who you are...

sorednax3 Let's talk about bad movies for a moment. A bad movie tends to fall in one of two categories. The first being that it has some redeeming quality. Maybe it's funny in spite of itself, maybe it becomes a guilty pleasure. The other category is one that is so abysmally bad that it can only be enjoyed with friends over beer and pizza, laughing and making MST3K-esque comments throughout the film. The later was our intention when deciding to watch Actium Maximus: War of the Alien Dinosaurs.This movie was far beyond bad. It belongs in a category all by itself (and then that category needs to be shot into outer space). In fact, ten minutes into this film we could no longer make fun of it. It became physically painful to watch, and may have caused permanent psychological damage. I would not have been surprised, once the movie was over, if my phone would have rung and the voice on the other end informed me I would die in 7 days.It is unclear what writer, director, composer and star Mark Hicks was shooting for, but what is clear is he was clearly not taking his medication. You would think a movie, containing both a narrator and subtitles would make the plot easier to understand. Not so. The narrator speaks as distinctly as the Daleks from Dr. Who. The subtitles, often paragraph long and displayed for only 3 seconds, was certainly in need of a spell checker.I'm no expert, but if I was to venture a guess, Mark invested his life savings into this film, all $140.00, and $25 of that was spent on Chinese food while editing. There were very few humans in this film. Mark Hicks plays Jacinlun Axezun (say that fast 5 times), a character similar to Han Solo. That is if Han was an overweight, monotone, lifeless dullard with all the bravado and sex appeal of a substitute chemistry teacher on anti-depressants. The arch-villain of this film is Grand Automaton Polpox (sounds like a disease) wonderfully played by a box with a blue knob. In order to divert the masses from his genocidal plans to exterminate the Rebel Laffrodites (I seriously am not making these names up)he holds these grand exhibitions pitting alien dinosaurs in mortal combat. Get ready, some serious blue-screen work here. I guess Phil Tippit was booked, because these dinosaurs were crafted from sock puppets, coated in play-doh, bacon and corn syrup. Every good director knows to have an establishing shot, especially when moving from one location to another. Mark doesn't disappoint here, as he creates an establishing shot of the exterior of the city which was actually the surface of a water-less aquarium.Sounds good so far right?So while Mark and his crew (consisting of some woman who may or may not of had dialogue, as she apparently didn't have a microphone) Polpox's right hand man, played by a stalagmite, warns him of an assassination plot against him. The assassin, as it turns out, is a moth. Go figure.The subtitle, "War of the Alien Dinosaurs" is also confusing. To be defined as "alien", it must come from an alien world. That's fine, as Polpox gathers dinosaurs from other planets. But dinosaurs? Unless he has a time machine, these beasts would just be indigenous animals. Or are the indigenous animals once prehistoric animals from the homeworld that somehow migrated across space. But, considering that these dinosaurs are made out of sock puppets, play-doh, bacon and corn syrup, I suppose it doesn't warrant much thought.The one saving grace this film offers is intellectual higher ground. What that means is, if someone is engaged in a conversation and utters the phrase "(insert name here) is the worst movie ever", take comfort in knowing they're wrong.As for me, if I was the sole survivor of a global holocaust, and this was the only DVD left on Earth, believe me when I say I would glee-fully coat my eyes with honey and face-plant into a pile of dirt covered in fire ants.

smittie-1 The DVD case reads, "With an intricate storyline not seen since The Dark Crystal, Actium Maximus is an ambitious and truly independent science fiction epic." Technically, that statement is true. The movie's ambitious, alright. Unfortunately, it's so independent that the budget is non-existent and the film ends up shooting itself in the scaly foot. The craftsmanship in Mark Hicks' sculpted landscapes and puppet armatures are diluted by the bad video quality and poor digital matting. Director Hicks, as Omni-Turor Axezun, looks like a jaundiced TV's Frank and delivers his lines with a mush mouth. Extras in rubber masks and robes wander around in front of a crudely pixel-lated blue screen. The robot dictator's dialog is delivered through clever subtitles that are in dire need of an editor and spellcheck. Thankfully, a few aspects of the film are purely positive:The music is cheerfully cheesy and boisterous. The occasional in-film newscasts slip in sharp social commentary about a non-existent society. And Axezun's lady friend certainly knows how to wear vinyl. With more money this might've been a minor classic, as it stands Actium Maximus is a noble failure.