Somnus

I bought this film on DVD and feel that the independent film on the disc was badly served by the artwork on the box.

It isn't a blockbuster, and, really, it doesn't try to be. This is an old fashioned sci-fi film that tries to play for tension and atmosphere rather than thrills and explosions.

In reality, I'm not sure it always achieves this, but it is a good, honest, attempt at it!

There are some notable performances - especially Mac McDonald, who is as good as you would expect, and there is an inspired choice of location for the ship-board shots, but, ultimately, I think it fails to make the most of the "story" and there is an uncomfortable shift of gears from ship location to the other location.

Watch this as an independent, low-budget sci-fi made in an old-fashioned style, and you won't be far away from the director's intentions. Believe the box art and posters and you'll be disappointed.

Somnus the musical? Why not, it would make more sense than anything else in this film.

First, the dialogue is completely indecipherable -- the actors speak in a very thick accent, they talk just above a whisper, mumble, and often get drowned out by the rest of the soundtrack. Then there's the ship. Who knew that spaceships 300 years in the future would use an instrument panel from a 1955 B-52 bomber? Complete with analog dial indicators! And you'll never guess what the ship runs on... wait for it... Steam. Yes, steam! The mechanics who maintain all those stream pipes running through the spaceship wear overalls covered in grease and grime, like they're working on a railroad or a diesel tugboat. It would be alright if the film was trying to be campy, but it wasn't. It's meant to be a serious movie.

Then there's the plot. No, wait. There isn't one. Maybe a plot exists somewhere in the brains of the screenplay writers, but it never came close to showing up on the screen.

Top it off with lousy directing, lousy acting, horrible cinematography...

Yes, I gave it a one, and it doesn't even deserve that.

Triggers: strobe effects, graphic violence, gory anthropophagy, dismemberment, all-white cast, blackface (or was that green-face?)

This film reminds me that Stanley Kubrick is overrated. Admittedly, I had trouble keeping my attention to the film. One trope is that human's humanity is a curse. The people on the spaceship are self-destructive because they are human. This humanist trope is backwards and an insult to humans everywhere. It has an Australian Mad Max feel to it.

The second trope is that a jelly fish can be a genius. They are pretty to look at, but where are the brains. This trope is based on the idea that mother nature is all seeing & all powerful. Ray Bradbury had his genius Martians, but I never quite understood why.

I am disappointed in the human race also, but to quote a football player: 'It is what it is'. The best of humanity is when President Kennedy set the goal of reaching the Moon in ten years & succeeded. He also started the Peace Corps. The worst of humanity was when Martin Luther King & the two Kennedys were assassinated.

I would rather watch the Tom Hanks version of space travel.

Don't let the one ⭐ haters mislead you, this is not a terrible movie. It's great either, but it does have good production values and a decent soundtrack which fits the mood of the story.

Lately, I seem to be writing a lot of really negative reviews about a lot of recent sci-fi movies but I guess that's because I'm becoming frustrated with the dross that the streaming services are offering to us.

"Somnus" is another movie in this series of duds. Filmed substantially in an old British Hawker Siddely Nimrod airplane from the 60s, the film has a plot that could have been lifted from a casual acquaintance with "2001" but without any of Clarke's or Kubrick's wit or intelligence. You probably won't care about the characters and you probably won't even care about the "big picture" thing that might or might not be going on.

I wonder: have we burned through all the truly creative ideas so now we're reduced to recycling everything, but only after it's been through a waste treatment plant?