Diving into the B-movie pool is always risky. Sometimes you find a hidden gem of schlocky fun; other times, you wade into a pit of boredom. If the title didn't already give it away, Terminal Voyage falls squarely into the second category.
The most striking thing about this film is that it's barely 80 minutes long, yet it feels twice as long. The narrative is barely existent: a crew of eight, en route to a habitable Earth-like planet, wakes from cryosleep to find their commander has been dead for decades. If that wasn't bad enough, they also soon discover that Earth's governments resolved ecological collapse the only way they knew how: by nuking each other into oblivion. It's a premise that could have set the stage for a thought-provoking sci-fi drama, but for Terminal Voyage, it's where any intrigue ends.
From there, the film drags through repetitive scenes of the crew struggling to cope by talking endlessly, escaping into VR simulations, taking drugs, and even hanging themselves. Around this time, they also begin to grow suspicious about the circumstances of some deaths. There's no real reason for them to be paranoid, though, as each death is either an accident or suicide. However, the plot really insists on this paranoia angle in a flimsy attempt to manufacture tension,. Something that it also tries to capture by shamelessly ripping off scenes from Alien. Meanwhile, the characters have no apparent astronaut-like duties and show no real interest in their original mission, which is colonizing a new planet, I guess?
There are some familiar faces in the cast: Steven Bauer (Scarface), Brenda Bakke (Hot Shots! Part Deux), and Ming-Na Wen (Street Fighter, The Mandalorian). Even the supporting cast features actors you might vaguely recognize from 90s sci-fi TV. But despite the reasonably solid cast for such a low budget production, the weak script and poor direction leave them sleepwalking through their lines, and I'm pretty sure they knew full well that this material was beneath them.
The movie briefly stirs from its coma at the very end with a plot twist that thematically seems to tie into the VR scenes. But by that point, I couldn't care less about deciphering the film's message. I was just glad that it was over.
Terminal Voyage is nihilistic, joyless, derivative, and utterly dull. It's hard to find anything worth recommending here. If you want some low-budget sci-fi schlock you can actually have fun with, you're better off looking elsewhere.
