Alien Cargo

Up 'till the end of the first quarter hour of this movie I thought,"Oh God, sexy post-adolescents in space . . ." However, after that, I was really surprised at how much I was drawn into these characters' dilemma. The unexpected tensions between the main characters and even secondary ones made them seem real (as it did in "Night of the Living Dead"). The effects were good enough and because the drama was so good, it didn't rely on the special effects to prop it up. I enjoyed it more than the effect- heavy "Alien Resurrection", which I viewed the same day. That movie didn't have the element of human pathos, and I found it rather pointless. This movie is good for mature audiences. If you are into hyper video games and need things to blow up, gore and slobbering monsters this may disappoint you

Surprisingly intelligent unhackneyed script for a somewhat familiar space subject. The uncliched ending, especially the visual of the last scene, still haunts me.

The beginning is an example of corporate tinkering. They felt they needed a formula hook so they editted one up front. But after that it really keeps you awake. Like an early Roger Corman film ("House of Usher") about half way thru, you realize they have been keeping the story going with smoke and mirrors, just 2 actors in this case carrying the whole film. But it works because the acting, the dialog, the direction, are great and the basic concept is solid and they dont screw it up. Then at the end you realize they arent going to cop out and it's really going to go where you never thot it was going to go. I really appreciate the minimalism and what they did with it. Story, characters, action... common sense in a dire situation.

9 stars out of ten.

A surprisingly intelligent outer-space mystery which is no alien-clone as it appears to be at first

The story may unfold slowly, but it has all the elements which makes it a good what-happens-next story. The actors are okay, nothing special, but the script nicely takes it time to explain different aspects around the mystery. It may not be entirely original, but at least we don`t get the whole picture from just watching 10 seconds of it. And the special effects are nice too. The end is a real beauty on the eye...and the mind.

We need more plot-focusing science fiction movies like this. Other similar movies to recommend: Alien-saga, Screamers, Outland, Life Pod..to name a few.

Starring the less drug addled of the London twins and Australian acting legend Alan Dale this little sci-fi movie is better than you'd likely assume.

It tells the overused concept of folks in "Hyper sleep" during a long journey through space. Two of them awaken only to learn that they should have woken up many months earlier, the crew are eerily missing and for some reason their tempers seem to be flaring.

Truth be told I'm sure I've seen this before, maybe an old Outer Limits episode or something similiar. The concept is bareable and competently enough handled but I couldn't get past the nagging feeling that it was more than slightly recycled.

Building to a less than predictible finale this impressed me, and that's hard to do considering I'm really not a sci-fi guy.

It still does rate just about an average film overall, but I appreciate the effort and it's certainly better than you'd expect it to be.

The Good:

Quite well made

The Bad:

Feels recycled

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

USA turns out to be responsible for every major movie conspiracy