Sean Patrick Flanery

Reagan Pasternak

Joel S. Keller

Roman Podhora

James McGowan

Kevin Hanchard

Sarah Danielle Madison

Anthony Ashbee

David Sparrow

Marie Ward

Michelle Stephenson

Jake Simons

Trudi Reaume

Jeff Hare

Andrew Wild

Paul Mitchnick

Izidore K. Musallam

Chevonne O'Shaughnessy

Gavin Mitchell

Ron Wisman Jr.

Nicole Manek

George Shamieh

Science Fiction

Action

Adventure

Horror

Savage Planet

Hand 'n' Hand Films

United States of America

_**Planet of the Prehistoric Bears**_

In the year 2068 Earth’s natural resources are almost depleted, so a corporation uses a deep space transporter to send a team to a planet 20,000 light years away in order to acquire a new source of oxygen for Earth.  Sean Patrick Flanery (the eponymous character in 1995’s “Powder”) plays the protagonist and Reagan Pasternak his potential romantic interest. Meanwhile Roman Podhora plays the corporation mastermind and Joel Keller his lackey.
   
“Savage Planet” (2006) is typical of movies from the 2000s that debuted on Syfy. It’s useless to complain about the lousy CGI, like the gaudy regeneration of a person’s hand shown at the beginning, because that’s just expected. Grade C movies like this don’t have the funds for anything better. 

Looking beyond that obvious drawback, this is basically a survival movie in the low-low-budget tradition of “Planet of Dinosaurs” (1977). The later “Ferocious Planet” (2011) ripped it off for a similar (and superior) movie with a different creature. It’s sorta like Star Trek when a team beams down to an Earth-like planet, but without phasers, tricorders and uniforms. Flanery is effective as the masculine protagonist.   

Meanwhile the three females are a’right (also featuring Marie Ward and Sarah Danielle Madison), but a movie of this ilk really needs someone of the caliber of Beth Rogan in the 1961 version of "Mysterious Island" or Annabelle Wallis & Hannah Tointon in 2010's excellent "The Lost Future"

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in Hamilton, Ontario.

GRADE: C

English