Hemisphere

Such a shame -please read if you're on the production team I truly hate giving a poor review, but this movie feels as if it were made as some kind of school project. It was let down so dramatically by the shockingly poor special effects, staging and costumes. This started with the (even now outdated) iPhone being used for communication on the shuttle, the AI, which looked like a cross between a one-armed bandit and a coffee machine with weird voices and even weirder accents, the whole space station looks like someone's badly made home extension, random bits of badly painted mdf stuck to stuff, a ceramic bathroom sink and wait for it... skirting boards everywhere... on a space station!?! The space suit consisted very obviously of an old crap crash helmet and ski gloves, donned over a set of overalls, I could go on but it's not great karma.

The script wasn't very high standard and the delivery in places wasn't particularly natural. It's a real shame, as this movie had some potential, but the failings were simply too many and too distracting to allow me to enjoy it. I did like the lead actress, despite what she was working with, she did a pretty good job. Also the dead body in the vent gets a thumbs up too.

An amazing, off-the-beaten path film, the kind of outlier that gets made through sheer determination and comes out shining. You quickly forget the low-budget conceits and become engrossed in the characters, beautifully played by two actresses I had not seen before (Paige Rion and Julie Kashmanian) but who are compelling and engaging. They bring to life a tense story that careens from paranoia to corruption to an ultimate reveal that is pretty shocking, and will have you thinking afterwards. If you are curious to know what indie films can do differently than gargantuan studio films, here you go. Thumbs up !

This is so amateur that looks like a bad high-school play or something, not much effort at anything really, specially knowledge of Science and Space technology; not even trying to do thing right with the little they could afford. Nothing was realistic, they went into filming without any knowledge of anything related to even film-making, let alone, making it interesting about anything. The "script" has 0 value, it was done by a lazy teenager in a weekend, about some easy crime in space, without any attempts to learn how to write for such. It was really bad, I can't believe they call this a movie, I'd be totally ashamed to even present this.

This was a lost opportunity to show brilliance of any type, since it'd automatically be highlighted for how bad was everything on this movie, not even the camera movement was right, I've seen movies like this but long ago, when low budget was = to low knowledge, before the Internet and computers and AI. Really no effort here; I can't qualify it 0/10.

Sitting through this film I didn't know what to expect. What a pleasant surprise. Independent films sometimes out perform and Hemisphere is definitely one of them.

The director did a great job holding to those elements that were entertaining and impactful. I liked the conspiracy elements and the characters felt fleshed out - not an easy thing to do on a smaller budget. The sets were imaginative and visually compelling. The team here felt committed to what they were doing and it sure pays off. I've always liked these kinds of films and the filmmaking team pulls off a genre that is not easy to get right. Well done!! I couldn't recommend it enough!

Full disclosure, I know a lot of the people involved on this production, and my immediate take away from all of this is that the performances stand out the most, especially Paige and Julie's performance -- that's a testament to the direction and writing on part of the director, Chris Maes.

This being his directorial feature film debut, what stood out to me was the plucky, bare-knuckle style and grit to the film that makes it enjoyable and worth investing the time into watching. The obviously fault here is that the film wears its budget on its sleeve **which is the case for just about every indie-film** but is especially hard to overcome for indie-science fiction...if you look passed budget constraints then the story becomes a lot more meaningful and enjoyable to watch.

Beyond that, I think the real winning take-away here is that we live in a day and age where science fiction is no longer out of reach for independent filmmakers and that's both inspiring and amazing...so big kudos to the producers for having the gumption to create this. I could never have imagined anyone would attempt a 2-piece chamber film in a small set-location designed to be a space station, but I am here for it!

You can't judge this movie by the shortcomings when you see the earnest attempts made by filmmakers that cost millions and fail horribly due to cliché and forced Hollywood pandering *cough* looking at you Last Jedi....this film fits really nicely into its own category and I really hope to see what Chris has up next.