Alien Cargo

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.

It's a lazy Saturday and I'm at home, not expecting to find anything worth watching on the tube when I stumbled upon this movie. I have to say that I was very surprised by this film. It's really pretty good. The problem with a lot of sci-fi pictures today is that they fail to create a believable fantasy world. Bad sci-fi flicks suffer from gaping plot holes or scientific impossibilities that anyone who paid attention to 4th grade science could figure out. This film doesn't suffer from such ailments. The writer and director painted a believable picture of a future where humans live on Earth, Mars, and mine the moons of Saturn and interplanetary shipping of cargo is a high pay / high risk job. The two lead characters awake from hyper-sleep 10 months past their scheduled date only to discover that the ship has been ravaged by the two members of the previous shift... both of whom are missing. The suspense starts from there continues to build for remainder of the film. It was pretty suspenseful flick. A lot of that is due to excellent acting jobs by Missy Crider (Frailty, Powder, the TV series The Others) and Jason London (The Rage: Carrie 2, Safe Passage) and a script by Carla Jean Wagner that didn't sacrifice accuracy for an abundant amount of official sounding techno-babble. Put the acting and writing together and you actually end up caring about the lead characters. If this movie a larger budget for props and special effects, it could have ranked up there with films like Alien, or Blade Runner. The ending isn't typical, which only adds to the class of this film. The only problem I can see with the flick are the external CGI shots of the ships... they are good for television, but still obviously generated by computer. Regardless, I still recommend this film. Enjoy!

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

It was refreshing to see a return to a Sci Fi movie based on suspense rather than horror. It had a decent and plausible story line. It was not heavy on special effects, but those it had were realistic enough not to detract from the movie. The acting was good, and the characters believable. It was unpredictable enough to keep you guessing, but did not have to come from left field to surprise you. The twists made sense within the context of the movie. If you watch Sci Fi for the horror aspect, you won't get much out of this movie. But if you watch for a decent story and a decent movie in a Sci Fi genre, you shouldn't be disappointed.

I just watched this movie again, this time on the Sci-Fi channel, and I came on here to see what others thought. Frankly, I'm surprised it has such a low rating on here. It's certainly not flawless, but I think it's actually pretty darn good. There really wasn't anything BAD about it, either--nothing really to complain about at all. The acting was all pretty well done; perhaps not Oscar-winning, but not unbelievable at all. The plot, dialogue, and story all made sense too. The special effects--though there weren't really much of these to comment on--were all better than you'd expect for a movie you'd see on TV, and even the prop corpses looked reasonably as you'd expect them to look. I was impressed at how logical they made it all: the way the cargo system on the ship worked, the way the ship computer interacted with them, the way they moved around outside the ship (it didn't look like they were on strings when they were slightly hovering around), the way they realistically handled all of the situations, everything. Seriously, this movie isn't bad at all. It's certainly not the MOST creative or original movie out there, but I really don't understand why anyone would give it a 4.8/10 (which is the user rating on here at the time of me writing this). Although I would find it hard for someone to say this is their FAVORITE movie, it certainly shouldn't get anything lower than a 6. Personally, I'm giving it a 7. It's entertaining, pretty well acted and written, and it doesn't contain any gratuitous gore, nudity, or foul language either to bring down its quality level. Heck, it's even thought-provoking. *shrugs* I like it, and if you like sci-fi movies (or even if you don't), I bet you'd probably like it too. Don't let the abnormally low user rating scare you, this is a good movie. Oh, and it's not a creature flick either--there are no monsters or aliens or anything to make it hokey. It's a pretty good movie, try it out for yourself.