Lifepod

Eight people on a survival pod. They bicker. Supplies run low. They bicker some more. They're overly dramatic. Poor script. Bad acting. The end. There are two types of sci-fi B movies: it's so bad it good and it's just bad. This one is the later.

I just watched this last night, which was just a few days after I saw the original Hitchcock film that it was based on, called Lifeboat. I wanted to see this movie because I was pretty impressed by the original film, and I almost always enjoy sci-fi movies. After having watched Lifepod, though, I'd suggest sticking to the original. It's not that Lifepod is all that bad, but it really isn't all that good, either. Overall, I gave it 5/10 stars because that's about what it deserves. There are plenty of films that are worse, and plenty that are better. Lifepod does some things well, and it does some things poorly.

For what it's worth, I wasn't surprised by anything that happened in the movie, but you may be. I guess it all depends on if you are able to pick up on the clues. You'll know right off if you can.

Honestly, I'm not sure this really should count as a remake. It's more like a new film based on the same material. Everything that the Hitchcock movie did well, this one either didn't do at all, or it did it very poorly. On the other hand, Lifeboat didn't rely on lots of action or highly tense scenes, but Lifepod did. I guess what this means is that if you liked Lifeboat, you probably wouldn't like Lifepod. And vice-versa.

One last thing, neither film is appropriate for the younger kids. They would be bored with Lifeboat, and they would be spooked by the violence and tension in Lifepod.

Claustrophobic talkathon. Characters are thrown together and then attempt to talk each other to death. It's the well worn crisis of the minute formula. If someone isn't dying, they are talking. It's pretty difficult to maintain interest when most of the conversations are sleep inducing drivel. Crawling around the escape pod with a constantly shaking camera adds nausea to the mix. Make no mistake, this is not "Lifeboat" in outer space. What it is, is a mini budget time waster for the cable networks to endlessly play. Admirers of Ron Silver and Robert Loggia should definitely look elsewhere, as this film gives them nothing to work with. Special mention must be made of the special effects, which are not even of video game caliber. Avoid. - MERK

Far better than I expected, after it began like a Babylon 5 episode. The judge from Ghostbusters 2 is always great. My favorite is "definitely not Keith David" and the little guy. The pixie haired girl is evoking Katherine Waterston in Alien Covenant twenty years earlier. Note a way to present scale with limited means is through eclectic characters. It's a shorthand that goes a long way. Meanwhile I can't remember a single character in Danny Boyle's Sunshine, who are more Silicon Valley techies; I will take these circus freaks instead, even down to the blind mystic.

Ron Silver directing this, the idea you direct a movie and decide to play this character... basically is its ace up its sleeve to just get to his big scenes, and it will read like those blockbusters who cast him.

This is the skill of the movie is it is always finding that one angle to go beyond the mediocre TV movie it is budgeted as, it is always at work painting the process of its failing. When any one angle falters it quickly goes to the next in the bag of tricks. This to me represents inventive filmmaking, for what they all sort of know is a doomed production.

Such as the cinematography. The director understands to do space everyone needs to be sweating and in gritty shadows. A small statement but I swear that is the power of those James Cameron 80s films. I think Interstellar could have learned those old school cinematography conventions read big on screen.

It's cinematic, it's never cheap. The script. The concept of Lifeboat in space is inspired already but this is putting real attempts at science fiction world building and character arcs, and I am like wait, why is this interesting me intellectually too? It's like a good writer's b-sides. Seriously this film punches way above its weight. Even some of the space shots are kind of cool for a 1993 TV movie.

Ever heard of Alfred Hitchcock´s Lifeboat from 1944? This is the same story only in space. It all begins with a sabotage on big passenger spaceship. It blows up and there are only like 10 survivors who luckily (?) got on the lifepod. And there more trouble begins. They are not able to contact the "starfleet" so they have no one to rescue them. But the most terrifying thing is that they find out that the person who sabotage the passenger ship is someone of them on the lifepod. But who is it? Very thrilling, guaranteed to make you sweat a whole lot. The grade: 9/10