Actium Maximus (Video 2005) Poster

(2005 Video)

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1/10
So bad.
13Funbags9 January 2019
First of all, I almost fell asleep during the extremely long opening credits. That's always a bad sign. Anyway, this movie has tons of back story. Told mostly through a narrator and subtitles. I didn't time it but back story had to be more than half of the dialogue. The majority of the dialogue is subtitled alien babble. It's almost always unnecessary and they frequently repeat themselves. The planet is full of aliens who all look completely different and one man who is always mad that he has to do everything. The dinosaur battles take place in a huge stadium in front of 6 people who can't even fake enthusiasm, probably because the battles are extremely boring and nothing ever happens. Did I mention that this movie has the worst monsters and green screen action ever? Never see this.
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1/10
This is the mother of all bad films
sorednax33 August 2011
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.
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1/10
Awful, and ugh...
waxmetal6 June 2007
This movie is awful, I'm SORRY. I bought this to get Star Worms, and actually expected this to be better after how disappointed I was in Star Worms. Oh just kidding, turns out this is the worst movie I've ever seen. The acting is garbage, not that there really is any, and the main character is a big stupid box who gets attacked by like, stuff or something. I can't really tell. The special effects are so bad that you can't even see the warring dinosaurs, which by the way do not war, but just stand and kind of move their mouths, or whatever those things are. The movie is a headache. It's very obvious the director is trying to establish a universe. Hahahahahahahaha... Really, this movie is just abominable, even by Troma's standards. The only good thing I can say about it is that it's got a Lloyd Kaufman intro, as he tricks us yet again into watching something that isn't fit for consumption.
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1/10
One of Troma's worst film next to Death Dancers...
whammy6667 May 2007
I got this movie as a buy one get one deal at troma.com with The Ruining (which isn't much better). The main reason I wanted it was to see Star Worms II: Attack of the Pleasure Pods, the DVD is a double feature with that movie. I really didn't know what Actium Maximus was at the time, and when I saw the trailer I got scared. It looked awful. But hey, what can you tell from the trailer? Well, apparently I could tell a lot. This movie honestly made no sens to me. The special effects were so terrible you cannot tell what in God's name is going on. I understand Mark HIcks had a extremely low budget, but come on. And it is sad, because in the interview he sounded like this was to be an epic film and meant more than you could see. But sadly, watching the film is one of the most boring hour and 15 minutes of anyone's life. It is so utterly painful to sit through. I really can't even explain the plot to you because I didn't understand it at all and I have sadly seen this film two times! Apparently they used some type of puppets for the "alien dinosaurs" like they did in Star Wars. But these special effects are awful, I can't stress it enough. And most of the time bad special effects are okay but this film needed them badly. It takes place on some futuristic planet where alien dinosaurs battle each other and bad actors in hooded sweatshirts run around, and they look like they are in the kkk. And some box with a blue light on it is the president. I know in the interview Mark Hicks said something about making this a television pilot, well, I can see why this didn't make it to CBS or NBC. There are two good things about this film. 1. the music is actually pretty good, it has an epic score that sticks in your head for days. And 2. Lloyd Kaufman's introduction is as always hilarious. Overall, don't waste your time but check out Star Worms II: Attack of the Pleasure Pods!
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1/10
This movie is distilled pain.
boots_mcg26 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
OK, what to say about Actium Maximus...

There are some bad movies that are so horribly awful they circle 'round to awesome. There are bad movies that just suck in their own right. There are good movies, and so-so movies, and movies that are just fun. Then there's Actium Maximus. You can't make a spoiler for this movie because to do that you would have to understand the action enough to comment. This particular movie is worse than Turkish Star wars one and the sequel too. Those movies are so bad they circle 'round to awesome and they make you feel drunk even if you're stone cold sober. Actium circles 'round from bad to awesome, but then it doesn't stop there, it takes another trip to badville, then 'round again to awesome, then finally it sets up a little feudal kingdom on the border of "Bad" and "stock footage of paint drying while a harpy screams incoherently." If you are into self punishment this movie is for you. It actually will cause your brain to hurt.
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1/10
Better than The Room / Birdemic, it is really a must see film
mmevanille-5309720 May 2018
Warning: Spoilers
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 over

We 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 stuff
  • Movie 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 qualities

  • For 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.
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2/10
Wait... what?
Roddenhyzer30 May 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Alright, now, I have no idea if this was done as a deliberate comedy, a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek spoof of low budget sci-fi flicks, or if they were really trying to be serious here and just failed spectacularly, but Actium Maximus, this hideous, shrieking beast of a movie, is hard on the viewers' eyes and ears regardless of the filmmakers' intentions.

My biggest gripe with the movie was *by far* the audio. I had an absurdly difficult time understanding the dialogue (unless it was subtitled, which it mercifully was in many scenes), because the robotic/futuristic distortion effects that were used for most of the alien voices rendered their speech almost completely unintelligible, not to mention an irritating chore to listen to. Tragically, most of the (painfully jargon-infested) dialogue in this movie is expositional and pretty much essential to understanding the story and the setting, so not being able to discern what's being said definitely is a problem. Or maybe not, considering that ---spoiler ahead--- *none* of the established conflicts and crises are actually resolved in any way whatsoever. Instead, the viewer is given the middle finger in the form of a "To Be Continued..." message after over an hour worth of nothing but buildup. Delicious.

Of course, the other major issue are the visuals. I have absolutely nothing against "bad", low budget special effects in general, nor do I reject movies that deliberately opt for a cheap look, whether for comedic effect or just for style, but this disaster is where I have to draw the line. The effects in Actium Maximus are bad to the point of being a severe distraction and hindrance to the plot. After a while, I was no longer just sitting there, watching a movie, but actually squinting at the screen, guessing the contents of conversations and hoping to figure out what the hell the makers where trying to convey with the confusing, chaotic imagery.

All in all, Actium Maximus is a nasty, messy and overall grating ordeal. It gets a 2 only for some of its genuinely impressive set miniatures, and the somewhat admirable guts the producers must have had for even attempting an ambitious project like this on such a damningly tight budget.
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5/10
Aims high, has further to fall
smittie-112 April 2007
Warning: Spoilers
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.
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8/10
So-bad-it's-AMAZING sci-fi epic!
polysicsarebest23 April 2009
I haven't commented on this site in a while but I just had to when I saw all the negativity aimed at this great film. I'm not going to pretend that this film is "good" in a conventional sense. And it takes a very, very small and very particular percentage of the world to truly appreciate what's going on here. I used to seek out "so-bad-they're-good" films when I was younger but I kept seeing films that were INTENTIONALLY bad, and that just didn't cut it for me. What makes this film so great is that it's all so SERIOUS! And, in all seriousness, you can tell that the director put a lot of effort, time, and money into this. It is very cheaply-made, but it still does actually have plenty of special effects and decently-constructed monsters. This film was actually filmed as a pilot to a TV series that never got made, and actually this film was incomplete as well, so the fact that this actually got released in the first place is quite remarkable, but I'm glad it did. And it is REALLY hilarious and entertaining from beginning to end, despite what other people on here might tell you. It's not conventionally "GOOD", and its not recommended unless you like this crap -- but for fans of the worst acting and special effects ever, this is gold. Let me repeat: You have never seen special effects this bad, a plot more nonsensical, a film more horrible (though well-intentioned). In my eyes, that makes it extremely special.

Star Worms II sucks, by the way.
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10/10
Best Sci-fi Thriller since Dark Crystal!!!
klipeisdead31 August 2010
Warning: Spoilers
With an intricate story mythology not seen since The Dark Crystal, Mark Hicks' Actium Maximus: War of the Alien Dinosaurs is an ambitious and truly independent sci-fi fantasy film ideal for genre fans, featuring some truly inventive animated special effects.

Turmoil rages in the colony of Actium, as assassination attempts, glitter riots and economic collapse all threaten to destroy the colony's fragile government. The maniacal dictator of the planet, Grand-Automaton Polpox, ignores the looming crisis by indulging in the Actium Maximus Karnivale, a gruesome competition where alien dinosaurs fight to the death, much to the delight of the ignorant citizens. Meanwhile, space hunter Omni-Turor Axezun is sent by the Grand Automaton to the farthest ends of the universe on a mission to retrieve additional creatures for the Karnivale. Axezun and his band of poachers find an ancient crashed spaceship, which may be the remains of a dead god. Inside the bowels of the wreckage, they find an ancient riddle that will change life throughout the galaxy forever!
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10/10
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh is all that i can describe it for
Exclelent movie because i could not understand it's complex themes and overarcin g plots with good characters my favorite is gurgling sock puppoet and how he carried the movie with spectacualer performance by john anyway i thought the spescial affects were pretty alright however i did not appreciate how the dinosaurs weer always chewing gum :( not good for the teeth and could send a bad message to yte youth, overall this movie was pretty okay, i cannot wait nfor the sequel

cheers :)
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