Viaje sin retorno

While it is not the best movie ever made, nor the best done, I think it's still an enjoyable movie. The acting, while a bit sheltered by medicore scripting, is superb. Ming Na does very well as the doctor, and Emma Samms and Brenda Bakke do quite well also. And of course, being the ever popular De Young fan, Cliff did very well, minus the bad accent. All in all, I would suggest this movie to most people, so long as you don't watch it with kids.

When a movie starts off with a spaceship floating in space, you are being told that this is where the action is happening. Telling us at the end of the movie that it's all been a simulation implies that...well, there were reasons for everything we saw to be simulated. A smart movie with this sort of premise--like The Matrix--sets this up visually and thematically and follows through on motifs of simulacra or dreams throughout the piece.

Here is a movie where everyone is being tested, but everyone is acting like they're living in real life. I just don't get it. If they hadn't tried to pull a twist ending--where none of our protagonists have suffered any consequences due to their own actions, but the outside world has changed around them despite themselves--this could have been an interesting Man vs. Himself story. It's just a muddled mess, though. And I'm pretty sure some footage is recycled from other B-movies.

First, you start with Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians." A crew is on a star ship and they start being killed off one by one. Add some cheap cliches to attempt to make the characters seem real, like giving the doctor a drug problem (Why is the one character who should be aware of the dangers of drug abuse and is acutely aware there is a limited supply for everyone on board the one who succumbs to it?). Put in the characters behaving by the numbers, saying things like, "We have a mission to uphold"). The movie is so obvious with its plot twists, you start hoping that it's just trying to throw you off, and you see something other than you are expecting. Not at all. In fact, the big surprise plot twist in the film's final act, as well as the "ironic" ending, aren't that surprising or shocking. You watch the movie, wondering what would have happened if they'd tried a little harder.

Quite different in tone from most films produced by Concorde, "Star Quest" follows a group of stranded space explorers towards disorder and self-destruction. There are only a handful of sets as most the scenes take place on the spacecraft, with a few v.r. sequences that - believe it or not - were actually filmed for this movie (unlike other Corman recycle jobs), plus various shots of the craft's exterior thrown in. The acting is also bumped up a bit from the usual B expectations, Emma Samms, Cliff De Young, and Ming-Na being the standouts. Lisa Boyle makes a nice cameo as a v.r. fantasy girl. All in all, a decent sort of extended "Outer Limits" episode with a nihilistic feel and lingering ending.

Wow, was THAT bad! Long, boring, drawn out scenes with no point, bad, melodramatic acting, and a musical score so annoying I wanted to stick a sharp object in my ears to get it to stop.. Why is it that only Emma Sams wears that ridiculous hat? Once you realize how stupid it looks you can't stop staring at it. This was just plain bad.