Clash of the Empires (2012)

The asylum has overtretched itself with this one.

Although their knockoffs can often be amusing films in their own right, this time the Asylum has bitten of more than they can chew. To ride the hype of "the Hobbit" they made a movie extremely loosely based on the "hobbits" of Flores, an extinct species of humans. Throwing any attempt at authenticity out of the window the small brained people (that according to at least some scientists walked on all fours) are switched out for some sort of tree hugging hippies played by horribly lip synched dwarf actors. (They are called "tree people" in the movie, the only time the word "hobbit" is used is in the end credits. To add to the confusion, the version this reviewer has seen was titled "Lord of the Elves", because there's exactly zero of those in this thing.) These hobbits share the stage with the giants/humans, a surprisingly racially diverse group of modern human hunters, and the rock men (equally loosely based on another real prehistoric human species living in the area), a cross between a cave man stereotype, a satanic cult and a culture of dragon riders. The dragons come in two flavors, both varan based, but one is poisonous while the other one flies. The models look impressing, the animation is less than sub-par. The entire film was shot on location in Cambodia, which is pretty close to an actual Indonesian jungle. This makes it all the more surprising that the movie ended up looking like it was shot is some rocky bushes in the studios back yard. The opening credits make it really clear: the jungle is the star here, that's where the budget went. The rest of the movie just fails to live up to that. To add insult to injury, the acting and the story are so bad that even the incredible star power of that guy from Stargate and the vengeance/fanservice girl with the two-sided Shredder spear (and okay, her star power too, she easily has the better resume) couldn't save this one.

That all said, the idea was definitely not bad, it just couldn't be done on this budget. The mashup of tools and clothes from all over the stone and bronze ages mixed with dragons and jungles full of venomous monsters results in a relatively original and interesting fantasy world. And I'm sure not a lot of people will object to the Asylum slowly moving towards less completely trying to copy upcoming blockbusters. So in the end, this movie ends up as a good idea given a bad execution. It's like inventing the wheel, and then building it out of shit. Keep trying Asylum.