Writer/director/editor/cinematographer Michael Ryan (credited as MAR) has pulled together this science fiction heist film on a shoestring budget and filled it with so many ideas that it feels practically cluttered. He is tackling corporate greed, apostasy, grief, and the pseudoscience of inter-dimensional realities and what makes humans human. This latter subject is hardly a novel concept for science fiction, nor are the motivations of a key character in his story, but the way he has it all thrown together, in such a way that it actually makes some sense, supersedes the low-budget aspects of this film and gives us a somewhat compelling action drama. It’s not a great film, but it is often fun to watch and is far from the worst of the films that make up much of leading actress Christina Ricci’s 2020s motion picture career.
The film follows three distinct stories that eventually intersect in the finale. The first is of Dr. Dresden Corliss (Christina Ricci). Dr. Dresden is a scientist who has recently lost her wife, Asha (Mena Suvari), to a tragic accident. She has developed a new technology that, when coupled with a mysterious alien sphere, can allow her to contact Asha in the afterlife. This sphere can also be used to siphon off energy from the souls of the living and be used as a means to immortality. This makes it a highly sought-after commodity that is currently in the hands of the Peredor Corporation.
The C & Earth Corporation wants to get ahold of this sphere for their own nefarious means, including the bonus of the theft causing stock in Peredor to plummet, allowing C & Earth to take it over. A pair of mercenaries, Crilenger (Steven Ogg) and Z (Samantha Win), along with an insider from Peredor, break into the Peredor building and steal the sphere. But betrayals lead to Crilenger and Z barely escaping without the sphere. Meanwhile, a second team of mercenaries, led by Malik (Linus Roache), is hired to handle the handover of the sphere. They kill the insider before discovering he has brought them a fake and the real sphere is being held unknowingly by his friend, Ethan (Richard Blackmon), a data analyzer for a powerful investment firm, Mutual One, who is also involved in trying to acquire the sphere. Crilenger and Z rescue Ethan and lots of people die before the sphere finally makes it into the hands of Dr. Dresden, the only other person who doesn’t have illicit plans for the device.
This is a complicated script with a lot of ideas being thrown around. The problem is that it doesn’t have the budget to properly realize all the ideas that are there. Michael Ryan admits that he has lofty, expensive ideas for his movies and has to work around the very limited budgets he can get out of his investors. This can translate into ingenuity to make things happen but it can also limit the scope of his projects. When he is relying on practical effects, the film looks beautiful; not on the same level as something like Blade Runner, but beautiful in its own way.
When visual effects are more heavily utilized, especially green screen effects, the limitations of the production become much more obvious. There is a sequence late in the film where a building is destroyed and it looks like a poorly rendered digital image of an explosion was simply mapped over the image of the building. It’s distracting enough to pull you out of the film. Other times it is painfully obvious that characters are not in the environment we’re seeing on screen, even when that environment is nothing more than on a beach. Since this film was shot in southern California, it’s puzzling that this couldn’t have been done practically.
Some of the stunt work also suffers from the lack of budget. The fighting choreography is poorly executed, and the sound effects give away that this action is not real. We don’t feel the hits nor do we believe what we are seeing when actors are throwing each other around. This is especially egregious during the climactic fight between Crilenger and Malik. Oddly, the gunplay is much better and has a more visceral feel to it. This is something a decent stunt coordinator can overcome, but that comes at a cost. Later in the film, Aliens get involved and the action really plummets downhill, marred by poor effects and the silliness of it all.
When this film is leaning into the satire, it is at its best. We get some advertisements for weapons that play like something out of Cyberpunk 2077, complete with the promise of testicular trauma; it’s brief but is quite funny. More of this plays over the end credits, making it worth the time to stick around and watch them just for that. There is also a sequence where assassins are sent from Mutual One to take out Malik. He’s a step ahead of them and has his own men ready to sneak up behind these assassins, just as they are doing to him. While the carnage is going on behind him, he is dancing around with a sword and playing up the camp level in such a way that we don’t get enough of in this film.
Most of this cast are relative unknowns. The few named actors are primarily television actors that don’t command high salaries. The two notable exceptions are Christina Ricci and Mena Suvari, both of whom have far less screen time than the rest of the leads. Despite her prominence on the poster and in the advertisements, Ricci only has a handful of scenes, and most of those are contained to a couple of sets. More of the film’s runtime is given to the secondary, less expensive performers. This is disappointing as having Christina Ricci in the cast is a draw that this film doesn’t fully deliver on; Mena is nothing more than a cameo, appearing for just a few minutes.
The Dresden Sun is a fun little low-budget science fiction story with a plot full of interesting ideas. There is nothing wrong with the script Michael Ryan has written that couldn’t be corrected with a better budget, though. Its weaknesses are primarily due to Michael’s relative inexperience and a lack of funds to fully realize his ideas. Watching it, it feels like a higher-end direct-to-video/streaming feature that could have debuted on Netflix or Hulu; that’s not a slight on it. It’s better than a lot of the ones I have seen like that. It’s a fun little romp that has potential; I would like to see what this director can do though with a proper team behind him. If he can do this with the limited means he had, imagine what he could do with even more.
Release Date: February 6, 2026
Running Time: 129 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Christina Ricci, Steven Ogg, Linus Roache, Samantha Win, and Mena Suvari
Directed by: Michael Ryan (MAR)
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