User Reviews

The independent South-Louisiana filmmakers who produce this film were pretty much spot on when it comes to low-budget documentary style filmmaking. You do have a lot of choices when it comes to documentary style films about the moon and moon conspiracies but I would say this is one of the ones to watch. The concept is great and does not attempted pander or talk down to its audience. The people being interviewed were spot on, great acting for non-actors. The director has potential but is still learning the ropes and could use some experience. But still pretty good ... For a low-budget film the cinematography was good and I found the film to be cut quite well. Again good job guys it's always nice to see a fellow Louisianian come up in the film industry. Rock on and keep it up ...

US 98m, Colour Director: Matthew Avant; Cast: Dave Potter, Jed Himel, Matthew Avant, Hal Maynor, Nathan Avant, Sarah Avant, Arte Richard

A documentary styled film that is reminiscent of Alternative 3 (1977), Lunopolis is a science fiction film surrounding the discovery of a time machine. The film maker's investigations lead them to a conspiracy involving a Scientology-like cult and their control over knowledge surrounding the settlement of the moon and time travel which is used to reshape earth's future by changing events in the past. An excellently scripted production, Lunopolis is a well-crafted low-budget movie that contains some unexpectedly good special effects, and opening and closing scenes which neatly bookend this entertaining film (Klaus Ming July 2013).

Lunopolis had an interesting premise, and the writers and director show a lot of promise by telling a good, suspenseful story.

Unfortunately, the film is let down by it's obviously minuscule budget. The format of the film (documentary style) does lend itself to a low-budget production, but there are many points where the lack of cash is apparent enough to pull you out of the story.

For one thing, there are a few brief special effect scenes that have zero authenticity to them whatsoever. The director would have been better off finding another way to treat the material, because a bad effect is far worse than no effect at all. Another thing that pulled me right out of the film was the scene at the cult compound. They clearly had no money for extras, wardrobe or stylists, so instead of a scene featuring intimidating, creepy, authentic-looking security guards in black suits (as intended), you have a couple of dorks in cheap sunglasses and clothes that don't fit, trying their best to look tough (and failing). It was pretty bad.

Anyway, as I said, it's an interesting film. I do wish they had the money to execute properly though, because it could have been much, much better.

Quite simply, his is the best movie I have seen in quite some time, easily, the best movie I've seen in 2011.

Short of it: 10/10

This movie is shot documentary style with some amazing special effects when you consider how low-budget the film is. If you liked District 9, it's told in the similar style but it just doesn't have any Prawn Battlesuits at the end. This movie actually made me creeped out by some of the events that took place. In my book, that's a great sign of story telling, and the environment fit perfectly for this tale.

Lunopolis is a perfect blend of other movies and genres that delivers. Remember Blair Witch? It's like that, but has an ending 10 times better. It has elements of the unknown as the story slowly unfolds to reveal interesting tidbits that force our main characters to take action.

Another aspect of this movie that I loved was the sci-fi/conspiracy angle. They told a great story with just enough truth to make the non- fiction parts believable to fit within the context of the script. This movie has deservedly won a bunch of independent awards across the globe, but you cannot call yourself a sci-fi fan if you don't watch this movie.

This is just another independent mock documentary film in the same vein as Blair Witch Project, District 9, This Is Spinal Tap, Paranormal Entity, Dark Side of the Moon, the list is endless. I fail to see anything other than another slightly above average film.

The acting for the most part is well thought out. However I thought some scenes were off the mark. Such as the film maker brandishing a pistol in the church? The motive was initially just curiosity and it would seem this changes in the documentary from that to "it is up to us to save the world".

The time and space paradox is never well explored. The plot is not that hard to follow but has some real silly scientific holes in it. For example; The part about "painting" over the moon photos, when anyone can clearly see the moon with the aid of a decent telescope or a pair of quality binoculars. Making a great deal of the film hard to swallow.

All in all an excellent film.

Due to its very nature and the complex ramifications it represents, there's a short segment mid-film that attempts to explain the narrative from the distorted point of view of the fictional film makers. After all, in a way, it's a film within a film within a film...that's all within a film you are watching. If that doesn't make sense, don't worry, that's one of the points of the film... And I'm not saying which one.

Even its own way of fictional complexity shows the sincerity of the filmmakers attempt at something truly unique. Even though it's not. Damn.

It's hard to explain without giving anything away except to say that the singularly most impressive aspect of the film is its acting. Well that, and it all makes sense somehow.

I wasn't sure I would like it at first and now it's all I've thought about since. Maybe I'm one of those who shows up at protest rally's and I don't even know it.

Crap. Now I went and made myself scared.

Lunopolis must be seen.

There are very few films that re-define a genre, or re-design one at least. But Mathew Avant accomplishes this feat with his instant science fiction documentary classic, Lunopolis.

Lunopolis fuses SCI-Fi with conspiracy, re-launching mockumentary style with an original twist of institutional authenticity.

Put simply: Lunoplois introduces facts that MAY be fictitious, but offers factual proof for those facts... fictitiously.

You have to see it to believe it: Two filmmakers find a strange lair, a cool 60's retro device, and an unlikely Polaroid picture. But what they really find is a well-written, and incredibly well-conceived answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Mark my words. Lunopolis is a delightful mindblow and will be talked about for years to come.

Though the last thing the world needs is another documentary-style piece of science fiction, this one is at least stylistically interesting, and doesn't follow the Blair-Witch-found-footage formula by rote. Which is not to say it follows a coherent plot, because this has to be one of the most confusing premises ever to emerge from a script-writers drug-addled mind. Layers of nonsense science are whipped into a frothy, illogical conspiracy story that's entertaining, so long as you don't try to make sense of the mystery, much less the contrived notions of cause and effect. On the plus side, the acting is mostly top-notch, and the photography and editing would make a really artful documentary, in the real world. Also, the obvious parody of Scientology - the "Church of Lunology"- includes some wry equivalents to L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige.

All in all, it could have been a much better movie.

I picked this movie up late one night on Hulu, quite casually, not knowing a thing about it.

Fast forward an hour later and I'm watching the movie with a rifle across my lap, terrified to continue but too engrossed to stop.

It isn't perfect, you can tell it's low budget at parts, but that doesn't stop it from being better than it has any right to be. The plot may be out-there, and the characters and dialogue ripped from a college campus, but Mother of God is it entertaining. I can't really say much about what happens, but if you like a good story, and love being creeped all the hell out, then drop the hour and a half. You can't do much better.

After about 40 minutes of waiting for the plot to kick in, I finally gave up and started fast forwarding. I'm always interested in newcomers and outsiders, and while they made a lot of good choices and did some decent work, I couldn't suspend my disbelief for more than about a minute at a time. The acting was pretty decent, (one guy even did a Bruce Willis imitation -- it had never occurred to me that was even possible) but there was too much going on in the story and I couldn't connect to the characters. A lunar civilization conspiracy, an odd religion, time travel, green crystals, the Mayan calendar. On and on. Turns out Elvis, Ben Franklin and Plato were time travelers, to name a few. I kept getting bounced out of the narrative on stuff like that. I just couldn't get into it. Showed promise, though. The initial shots of exploring the swamp were pretty vivid. I encourage them to keep working at film. I think a script doctor could have solved 80% of the problems up front.

Lunopolis is a superior and riveting sci-fi exploration into the docu- style which was soundly poured all over the popular film scene by The Blair Witch Project, and since carried on many times since. But, The Witch Project has absolutely nothing on Lunopolis. This film both pulls you wonderfully and helplessly in, yet also introduces a few mind bending quantum concepts (multi-verses, time travel, even what we call ghosts) into a gaping spectator style film perfect for the somewhat jaded elder infoweb generation. The story involves the crew who in their relentless curiosity, unlikely find an object which may alter space, time, and perhaps all of history. Still, this discovery becomes almost secondary to their genuine fear, insatiable childlike need to know, and pervasive want to bail out on the whole thing and save their asses after they realize that they are not alone. They do not want to believe, yet they are forced to run when pursued by a largely ineffective sorta Mormon-esque Scientologist Lunarian hit men squad (and why so merely verbally menacing? are they there to just push them forward?). They miraculously escape again and again. That they are spared does not detract from the inevitability of their quest. They meet strangely learned people, but they remain shrouded and not overly helpful. Thankfully, no cinematic, physics or sci-fi theoretical concept is slathered in sugar and dragged excessively across the stymied crew's faces too greatly, and the pacing is quite relentlessly perfect. It's an excellent film to gape slackjawed at, be a little wowed at, and yet still believe in it's possibility. X Files fans might definitely like this. The fourth wall, being broken by the nature of the film in the first place, never tires, nor is burdened by any overly prescient character narration. It's a great watch, a late night movie to enjoy.

The movie starts with an interesting mystery premise and grips you, but then it just goes off the rails and not in a good way. I really like these kind of movies, but this just tries to do way too much.

Now I know this film was made on a very, very low budget, so I didn't expect Oscar winning acting performances I didn't expect a world class film. I have watched enough found footage movies to last at least one lifetime. Of course some have been excellent, some have been awful. This film sits in the middle. I jumped into This film knowing nothing about it, sometimes it is better to do that with films of a limited budget otherwise you will be expecting something more. This hit a low on it's story telling when they were confronted by bodyguards, the guards looked as if they just left school, this to me took any tension that was in the film out, almost ruined the movie for me. An okay attempt, some of it was really good and I did enjoy it but most of the film kept on dropping the tension off, if the film makers had thought and kept the story more tight then this film could have been really good. For all their effort I give it a three, why so low? Well this could have been really good but to many scenes were taking away from the tension of the movie.

I was bored one night on Hulu and clicked this movie completely thinking it was gonna be a cheap cheesy Sci-Fi film made in someones basement. I was pleasantly surprised at its quality, the in-depth story line, the immense amount of scene changes, the ability to pull you into the story and make you feel for the characters. I believe this is one of those films that no one knows about but deserves awards for how good it is. Needless to say I did not regret watching this movie. The story line is a little out there but I don't think the whole plot would make sense if the story line wasn't a little out there. So YES I would recommend it to friends and I have.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to have the music louder than the dialogue must of wrote the score? It seems like a good plot but its like a long montage with all THAT MUSIC. I literally logged in just to say this and see if anyone else was bothered by it.

The effects are good, the acting was chill and again great plot. Love movies like this that make you think. I just cant ger past how loud the music is. Its more loud music than just quiet dialogue. Literally turned in closed captions to make sure not missing anything. Im a movie buff especially if this genre. I cant think of one movie where the music is that loud over dialogue.

A pleasant surprise, "Lunopolis" was way, WAY better than what we expected. Reminiscent of watching a good long X-Files or Twilight Zone episode, this film begins with the laughable premise of aliens living on the moon. Yawn. But the movie's opening scenes and fast pacing were done so well and so stylishly, that we were riveted to the screen until the very end. Now that was some pretty good story-telling! The main fault I have with this film is the church followers of lunopolis which didn't make much sense to me and was not very believable to begin with. Otherwise, the acting overall was solid, not very many special-effects but what special effects they did have were not flashy but got the job done - and a big plus for a great story told well. +++

I am a very big critic on science fiction movies, either its complete bull crap or its awesome, luckily this movie isn't bull crap. However it is by far the most laughable sci-fi topic ever invented: Aliens from the moon. Yawn. However this movie was extremely interesting with a great twist ending and a plot that kept me biting my nails. Documentary style/ found footage movies are a very popular genre this time, and it is not as unique as it was when "The Blair Which Project" came out. I say that "Lunopolis" is way better acing wise and plot wise, it was just as suspenseful than "The Blair Whitch Project." I give it an 8 out of 10.

Lunopolis is truly low budget sci-fi magic. I had no expectations going into it other than to waste a little time. It was so worth watching - I was glued to the screen, time flew by! The storyline is exquisite and well thought out, but it definitely requires a heaping spoonful of suspension of disbelief. The time machine scenes are very cerebral and thought provoking. The plot involves many aspects but none more exotic than the 12/12/2012 prophecy and the documentary style to which it unfolds. Lunopolis has elements of the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits which gives it a subtle noir tone but the film stays grounded in its own vibe. I shutter to think what this movie would have done at the box office if it were produced on a large scale with a bigger budget. The flying car in the movie is only referenced, never seen. The ending is truly a mind bender, that's all I will say.

I know I can watch this for free on HULU...and pay for a download on Amazon....but WHY doesn't IMDb list if it's available on DVD? I think this site was purchased by Amazon and if there was any place you would think they would advertise the fact that there was a DVD available, it would be here.....BUT NO...they only list the download for this and many other films. Most disappointing as they try to get more people into renting rather than purchasing the films. I guess there's more $$ in it if they can control access more easily. Is this the future of watching films at home? I see the same thing happening with music where CD sales are almost incidental now compared to purchasing individual songs for your IPhones, etc is the dominant way most people collect their music these days.....As a result, the quality of albums tends to drop and in the future, there will probably be fewer movies available with such special features as commentaries by the actors and director....Most disheartening!

I love low budget films. Or maybe I hate high budget films. I am convinced that some movies evolve out of somebody's idea for a grand and glorious special effect ... and they build a movie around that one scene. There is no such thing here. It is a classic formula ... they build the case for the premise while they are in fact telling the story. Sure it has some flaws ... even big budget spectaculars have flaws. The biggest flaw is the far too long interview with David James but that cemented the storyline together so I let it slide. It just didn't fit the shorter scenes in the rest of the movie. The really oddball thing ... is ever since we watched this movie we have been receiving mysterious phone calls ... like our time-lines are messed up now. Seriously. Hopefully this will sort itself out, with or without the help of the Lunarians.