Supernova

I do believe that I watched this movie some time back in the early 2000s, but it is not a movie that have left much of an impression with me back then, because I don't really recall anything from it, aside from it having James Spader on the cast list.

I got the chance to sit down and revisit "Supernova" now in 2017 and decided to watch it again, and did of course grab the opportunity as it arose. When I was younger I wasn't much of a sci-fi fan, aside from loving "Star Wars", but as I have grown older I have come to find enjoyment in the sci-fi genre as well.

I must admit that I was more than genuinely excited to see Angela Bassett being on the cast list too, because I have come to enjoy her work over the years, and she is actually a very talented actress. The cast list also had Lou Diamond Phillips and Robert Forster playing in the movie, so there were some familiar faces for sure. Now, I have never been much fan of James Spader, but I must admit that he was really well-cast for this movie and he performed very well. However, I can't help but sit and think that James Spader sounds so much like a space-Batman as he talks throughout the course of "Supernova".

Taking into consideration that the movie is from 2000, then I will say that the special effects, CGI and visual effects are actually still quite good even by today's standards. And having convincing CGI and proper effects is alpha and omega for a sci-fi movie to have the proper punch to it. And the visual effects team here really managed to perform quite well. The robot, however, well at least it served its purpose, but its movement were so weird, rigid and jerky that it looked comical. The designs of the space vessels were also quite interesting and it looked very realistic - well, as far as sci-fi takes realism, of course.

"Supernova" picks up pace very early on and throws the audience right into the thrill and excitement of the Space adventure. Writers William Malone, Daniel Chuba and David C. Wilson really had managed to create something very compelling and thrilling, while director Walter Hill brought the script onto the screen quite nicely and it made for a very entertaining movie indeed.

There was a great atmosphere to the movie, and it was a very believable setting that they managed to create. And that applied to both the deep space scenes and also all the scenes aboard the spacecraft.

This movie makes good use of a mixture between action, thrills, storytelling and character development. So there definitely is something for just about everyone here.

"Supernova" was actually a much better movie than I initially remember it, so I can honestly say that it is a movie that is well-worth taking the time to watch, especially if you enjoy sci-fi movies that fall into the thriller/horror genre.

Supernova was the beginning of the Downfall for Lou Diamond Phillips if you ask me. Anyway, the movie is about a traveling hospital rescue spaceship, that moves about the cosmos to save stranded vessels and what not. They come across a distress call, and zip off in some sort of warp travel.

After arriving there they come across a stranded miner and some strange material, that turns out to be pieces of the 5th dimension. And then the movie finally collapses under its own stupidity.

Mediocre acting, nice special effects, REALLY stupid plot, all create a nice mixture to cause minor insanity in the viewer. Some people even lose all conscious memory of having ever seen this movie, confusing it with Red Planet or some other such film.

In other words, Run!

Ridiculous "loud & lazy" sci-fi thriller that makes ample use of Robin Tunney's willingness to disrobe but has little time for things like logic and characterization. The plot is that a search and rescue ship in deep space answers a distress beacon. For their trouble, they get Peter Facinelli. Oversexed, overly derivative mess of a film offers nothing you haven't seen before and better. Hell, just a few years before this was Event Horizon, with a very similar plot but a much better movie. A dark-haired and particularly buff James Spader gives the only performance worth mentioning with a straight face. How about that laugh-inducing ending? You wouldn't think a movie that has the names of both Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Hill attached to it could be this bad but it just goes to show I guess.

A deep space "ambulance" ship receives a distress call from a mining outpost on a rogue moon (it's been removed from its orbit) 3 thousand light years away. Normally, that wouldn't be so unusual, but the distress signal was specifically hailing this particular ship (like calling someone inside an ambulance directly instead of dialing 911) and when the source is revealed, female crew member Kaela Evers (Angela Bassett) realizes that she knows the person who sent it. Worse, it's someone whom she's had an extensive personal history with and whom she considers a walking nightmare. Before she can warn Captain A.J. Marley (Robert Forster), they're in hyper drive on their way to the moon and unwittingly headed into trouble.

This film was plagued with problems--the originally attached director, Geoffrey Wright, quit. The replacement director, Walter Hill, had creative differences with the studio, which demanded re-shoots and new cuts from none other than Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Sholder. Hill ended up requesting that his name be removed, and used the new version of the infamous "Alan Smithee" designation--"Thomas Lee".

And that wasn't the end of it. Upon its release, Supernova received a critical drubbing. Rotten Tomatoes, for example, a website that collates professional and semi-professional reviews on films, showed a 90% negative reading on Supernova. The reaction from everyday viewers mirrored this reception, with mostly negative comments right here on IMDb.

But Supernova isn't that bad of a film. It's no gem, but it does a lot of things right: The premise is certainly stimulating. The transition from a stock, Alien (1979)-like sci-fi film to a thriller in space is well done. The characters are interesting. The suspense level gradually increases until the very end of the film.

There are thoughtful subtexts about giving oneself over to a "feel-good" substance, "survival of the fittest" evolution, and cyclical regeneration. The "fountain of youth" device is intriguing, and even though the "Ninth Dimension" stuff is gobbledy-gook, it's good gobbledy-gook--it makes some sense as fantasy material, and it provides a lot of suspense. There is a subtle social commentary/criticism on attitudes about violence in the media, population problems and eugenics.

A lot of the cast is also good--I like Robert Forster a lot, although unfortunately he disappears from the picture too soon. I'm also a fan of Lou Diamond Phillips, even if his presence more often than not signifies a "C", "D" or lower film. James Spader's characterization of Nick Vanzant is nice and complex. And the rest of the cast is at least decent, even if Peter Facinelli overacts a bit towards the end--but the role calls for that.

However, as a 7, Supernova has its share of problems, too. I don't usually subtract points for a film being clichéd, but it's difficult not to do so in this case. The beginning of the film is right out of Alien--with the ship waking up a crew member unexpectedly, after running some "tests". This is saved a bit by funny dialogue at the end of the scene. The computer, "Sweetie", is reminiscent at times of "Hal" from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The holographic chess game is right out of Star Wars (1977). The distress signal scenario is again out of Alien, and the exploration of the abandoned mine on the rogue moon is similar to Aliens (1986).

The dialogue in the opening of the film is also a bit too jargonistic and quickly delivered for its own good. It can be difficult to get the gist of it without subtitles. There are a number of editing problems, most prominently during the "near miss" of the out of control ship with the moon--shaky cam cinematography doesn't help, either. And for so many directors being involved, the direction, while not incompetent, comes across as primarily "flat".

Is Supernova worth seeing? If you're a huge sci-fi fan (meaning that you watch and like most sci-fi films) and you do not mind familiar material that's slightly clunky at times, yes. There are enough positives to make it worthwhile. Like usual with 7s, the film is best approached with lowered expectations. Given the reputation of this film, that should be no problem.

Supernova is legendary for is production problems and poor critical reception. However, the end result is an entertaining action sci-fi film which fails to live down to its absurdly low expectations and also fails to live up to its very high potential. in other words, it's better than most people say, and nowhere near as good as it should have been.

A rescue ship manned by several paramedics, a hot shot pilot just out of a drug rehab, and emergency personnel, patrols the frontier of human exploration, serving mining colonies, etc, far from earth's solar system. Just as we are learning the personalities in the film, and just as they are starting to become interesting, a distress call is picked up and the ship responds. Enigmatically, the distress call seems to have come from somebody out of the chief medical officer's (Angela Bassett) past, with a lot of problems. "The patient", however, is just the beginning of the mystery, as a strange object with the potential power to destroy the known universe is eventually found.

The first problem with the film is that it bites off much more than it can chew - developing compelling characters, a very interesting, detailed and original plot, excellent special effects and some great sets, but never permitting any of them to grow, expand or become fully realized. The second problem is, I suspect, the fault of studio mismanagement. Rather than contributing to the film, the cinematography and editing are so poor that they, in fact, distract and detract. The production problems - switching directors, mismanagement by the sponsoring studio, inartistic and uninspired re-shooting and re-editing - suggest a couple of simple explanations. There are so many wipes and fades in the second half of the film that I began to wonder whether they were supposed to signify something (such as the passage of time, switching of dimensions, etc) which the audience was not privy to.

Contrary to popular belief, this film had a great deal of potential, however, it would have made a much better TV mini-series or even a premise for a TV series than a cinema release. Why? Because the story and especially the characters needed a lot more time and a lot less editing to develop properly.

The story line can be seen as totally inept or quite brilliant. Though I am no fan of black-box pseudoscience explanations such as "9th dimensional matter", I prefer the 'quite brilliant' interpretation. If you think a lot about what goes on in this film, you can easily link together what seems to be a mess of loose ends and detached subplots and really 'get' what the story is meant to convey. Facinelli's character can be seen as a guardian or simply a power-addict; Spader's former drug addiction can make his attempt at heroism seem a resolution of his inner demons; his relationship with Bassett can be seen as the resolution of the entire set of problems the film poses. However, realizing all of this requires more though and energy than the film itself suggests, and depicting it so that it could have been easily deciphered by the audience would have required at least a few more hours than the film was allowed.

The acting is actually quite good. Angela Bassett is, as usual, excellent, and Peter Facinelli and Wilson Cruz are both worth watching. James Spader's often maligned performance is perfect for the character he is playing - a former drug addict on a quest for redemption. I generally do not like Spader's work very much (there are already too many Clint Eastwood and Robert Downey types in the acting world today), but I do respect his talent. It is unfortunate that the characters were not permitted to develop as they should have, and though the reasons why are almost certainly the lack of decisive directorial control and the studio's post-production mistreatment of the film, this does not excuse Walter Hill from partial responsibility. Hill, after all, used some of the same signature structural plot devices in the over-rated Aliens and the weak but under-rated Alien3 - both of which were better films. the problem with the direction here is, predictably, simply one of consistency. Two to three directors and who knows how many editing and post-production teams simply can not make a perfectly coherent artistic vision.

Simply put, if you're into Sci-Fi, and don't mind films which favor the "fi" part of the phrase over the "sci", then you might just find yourself quite entertained. If you're no a sci-fi fan and you like action films, you might make it through Supernova. But, if you're not a sci-fi fan and your looking for something important, artistic and thoughtful, you should avoid this film like the plague.