Dr. Karen Fast (Catherine Walker) has invented a device that can glimpse alternate parallel dimensions. When demonstrating the machine’s capabilities to a group of political bigwigs, including Senator Jackson Crenshaw (John Rhys-Davies) and presidential special advisor Dr. Jillian O'Hara (Dagmar Döring), a strange power overload transports the lot of them, as well as the majority of the building, into one of these Earth-like universes. It is now up to her and chief of security Colonel Sam Syn (Joe Flanigan) to figure out a way to return them home while holding off the massive creatures intent on eating them for lunch.

CRITIQUE

Ferocious Planet actually has a better idea at its core than the majority of the creature features and end-of-the-world disaster epics that make up the majority of the Syfy Channel’s weekend programming. I kind of like where director Billy O'Brien and writer Douglas G. Davis (Carny) are starting from here, and while the setup to the main event is nothing more than the expected B-movie cheese that didn’t make me any less interested on seeing what it was they had in store.

Sadly, the answer to that particular question is nothing of interest, the movie nothing more than a paint-by-numbers escape-slash-survival piece filled with disposable characters and worthless moments all adding up to very little. Other than a decent gag involving Rhys-Davie’ cantankerous Senator and some engaging work by “Stargate: Atlantis” veteran Flanigan there’s not a lot to talk about here, the whole movie a surprisingly boring parade of clichés and thin characterizations that barely kept my attention.

I will say that there are one or two decent ideas hidden in Davis’ script, most of them having to do with O’Hara’s interest in discovering additional information about the new universe they’re trapped in, but sadly the movie never does all that much with any of them. Also, even for a Syfy Channel effort the special effects here are shockingly poor, the central marauding creature looking like a reject from a bad video game circa 1994.

Even for someone like me who has a soft spot in their heart for silly B-grade monster and science fiction movies Ferocious Planet didn’t do anything for me. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, to let its silliness crush my reticence into submission and allow me to go with the flow of its ludicrous design. Problem is, it’s just too poorly paced, plotted and realized for that the happen, and as much as I’d like to think fans of this sort of thing might be willing to give it a pass my gut tells me their reaction is going to come extremely close to mirroring my own.

THE VIDEO

Ferocious Planet is presented in 1.78:1 Widescreen.

THE AUDIO

Ferocious Planet comes with an English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track with optional English SDH subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are no special features included with this release.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ferocious Planet has a better concept and idea than most Syfy Channel monster movies but unfortunately doesn’t do much that’s all that interesting with them. It’s boring and by the numbers, the sub par special effects and inert characterizations by the supporting cast not helping matters at all.