Spaceship

The Good Bits

1.Firstly, when watching this you have to remember this is a low budget movie. It's never going to have the slick VFX of blockbusters like the new Star Trek films. That said, I think both the VFX and SFX were really good. I totally bought that these people were in deep space on a ship. The id chips and the personal visual displays were particularly good.

2.You can tell Jason Momoa is having a good time playing the bad guy - and he does a solid job. Adrian Holmes also puts in a good performance as the corrupt warden in charge of the group.

3. The opening 20-30 minutes are well paced and set up the story well. The first part of the film creates an unsettlingly clinical atmosphere that unfortunately is not sustained throughout the film. The ending wraps things off nicely and feels like a satisfactory conclusion for the audience.

The Not So Good Bits

1. Characterisation. I felt if you removed several of the debug crew from the film it would not affect the plot in any way e.g. the characters Samson Connoly and Lara Riley felt like they were extraneous.

2. The fact that all but one of the female characters stripped down to their underwear, for generally unknown and spurious reasons, while none of the men so much as rolled up their sleeves. It made this film feel like, despite it's futuristic storyline, the writing belongs to history bin.

Oh dear. Just... oh dear. I like science fiction and I always enjoy seeing a good 'spaceship' type set. Just about the only two big budget 'spaceship set-type' movies of recent years were the Star Trek reboots and Prometheus. Therefore, I always try to give a space movie a chance. I shouldn't have bothered here. If you see this film out on DVD in the shops, you may notice its quite flashy box. Don't be deceived. The cover art is about the most expensive part of this whole film.

Basically, it's cheap. That's really all you need to know. During the opening scene, you'll get a sort of establishing shot of the outside of a giant spaceship. Only it looks like it was designed on a ZX Spectrum. I probably should have turned the film off there and saved myself an hour and a half. What follows is six kids (okay, teens – but they acted like kids in my opinion) trying to get rid of an (evil) artificial intelligence from the spaceship's computer. The kids wear cheap orange uniforms and I wonder which genius actually entrusted them to this critical mission? Surely the crew of the Red Dwarf would be more organised than this crowd? The spaceship is nothing new – white clean-looking corridors and... well, that's about it. Nothing new and certainly nothing expensive.

You won't give a damn about a single character. They're all equally bland. I guess I should be grateful they're not that annoying. Anyway, in this cheap 2001: A Space Odyssey set, you get a vague Event Horizon plot where the kids have to face their fears (or something – I was kind of tuning out by this stage). But, whereas Event Horizon had a cool Gothic feel for its decent, well-known actors to get lost in, this one is just cheap white corridors for its unknown cast to find – apparently – scary stuff in.

Yes, it's fair to say that I didn't like it. Granted I didn't really hate it, it's just there's nothing new here and nothing I have seen, only much better. If you like your 'spaceship movies' (like I do), just watch anything from Star Trek to Event Horizon (or Pandorum – I liked that, but no one else seemed to). Just forget this and ignore the enticing cover art on its DVD box.

Okay, it had one positive: the 'HUDs' (heads up displays) were kind of neat and I'd never seen that special effect before. But that alone wasn't worth an hour and a half of my time.

The highlight of the movie is watching Sidney Leeder's character flirt, tease, and taunt other crew. She's one of the few characters that has some depth, motivation, and sense of fun.

Jason Momoa wasn't bad as a menacing AI, but he wasn't a character to empathize with - or even to love to hate. He ultimately had the 2 dimensional motivation of an AI following his programming, but with a maniacal murder streak. Without a truly 3 dimensional villain, he may as well be a glitchy computer or one with a loose wire. He seems to want to kill and torture... just because. Senseless violence is boring.

Some CGI was really entertaining. The best parts being those that blend into the scenes - like e-mail in their heads up displays. Parts of the ship were well done. The exterior shots were very well done.

Honestly, I think I'd have enjoyed the movie more without the killer AI - just fleshing out the prisoner characters' backgrounds and interactions more and their frustrations with the limitations of their freedoms. The movie is like a bad episode of Outer Limits where we get little exposition and narrative followed by mindless violence / action sequences meant perhaps to visually impress, but utterly lacking substance. Just having Momoa on a monitor talking was more menacing and entertaining than the whole opening sequence of the movie.

David Hewlett is one of my favorite actors. I applaud his effort in writing and directing a full length film. It's better than many made- for-TV Syfy channel craptastic flicks of the month. I think with some work, we could see this again in another form with more well rounded characters and a better story arc for the "heroes" and villain.

I wouldn't recommend the movie, but there are worse ways to spend your time. I'd describe it as having elements of Cube, Jason X, and Hackers. I'm hoping this was a proof of concept flick to show that David Hewlett is ready to take the helm of something larger.

If you consider yourself a movie critic savant, go buy your tickets, eat your popcorn and stick to the big screen. Those big money making movie producers/director/actors eagerly want your reviews!

For people who know how to enjoy different genres and can enjoy low-budget films, then watch it. So in a nutshell is it big screen material? No. Horror? Not really. Predictable? Yes. Low-budget? Definitely and very obvious.

Acting was decent, even Mamoa. You can't put Mamoa in a movie and not have him physically kicking ass, even as an AI! Is it worth watching just because Mamoa stars in it? Meh.... Is it worth watching because David Hewlett's name is stamped on it? Yes!

Does it leave you feeling euphoric? No. Would I watch it again? Yes.

So I recommend you watch it, on a lazy day while multi-tasking on a laptop/iPad. Keep in mind that if you are expecting a mind-blowing out of the ordinary movie, don't bother watching. IT IS A LOW-budget movie. The Sci-Fi channel has put some seriously bad movies out there, so compare to those, Debug falls in that realm of a decent Sci-Fi watchable.

Though fun might not be the right word for it. Still if you have a thing for Science Fiction movies and do not mind, if they are low budget and filled with some gore and plenty of action. It also features very bad character decision and some questionable acting. But it's all in the fun of it (if you're having it, that is).

Actually the set design is not that bad for the money had. The blood and general special effects are more than decent too. You can see where this is going (in contrast to some of the characters and their very poor choices, but then again, they were criminals, more or less), so no surprises there. But the movie is done nicely and it is entertaining most of the time