I came upon this almost by accident and rolled my eyes at it till I saw Claudia black who has some credibility, listed in the cast. She does a good job with the material and gives a great performance throughout. Her performance gives her character some depth which in truth, the screenplay seems to miss somewhat, but she can't singlehandedly carry this one off. The script needs another once over with a fresh pair of eyes if I'm honest, as much of the dialogue is like something out of a comic book, cliched, meaningless and stilted.
The story is a reasonably good one if a little predictable, but the premise is sound. However there simply isn't enough going on to keep the interest focused, and the lengthy scenes and uneventful screenplay lend little to maintain interest.
The special effects, CGI are all decent, nothing to write home about, but they don't let the movie down the way the script and story line do. I'm always a little sceptical when the writer and director are the same individual since what is perceived in creation isn't always the best way to flesh it out on film, and here my concerns are warranted. One or the other is my rule of thumb and rarely does it bode well for a creation with a single person doing both.
I think much of the films forced ambiance are due to a lacking in direction, and some of the characters are way off base. 'Grey' and 'Sen' played by Black and Blackwood are a constant source of contention with no clear command structure seemingly in place. Its an odd way to spin a relationship in space with a mission of such importance, and it neither works here nor rings true. There are other weird glitches throughout the movie and it serves only to kink the smooth flow of events as they unfold on-screen. I found it most disconcerting.
Blackwood delivers the whole compliment of his lines through clenched teeth as though he's stemming the overflow of some long held rage with great difficulty. His stiff, stoic delivery makes him stand out as the weak talent in this cast of less than ten people. Again I think this is more due to bad direction rather than a failing of his talent, but irrespective, the movie suffers as a result. David O'hara by contrast plays his character to a 'T' and the other cast members with more minor roles are accomplished enough, but forgettable.
On the whole it's not too bad, but there just isn't enough going on here to bring off the story, and some of the cliched developments really do it a disservice.
I think 5 is an honest and fair score, for what is at best, a 'watchable' movie. Its not a big production so I don't want to be overly critical knowing it couldn't have been an easy one to produce, but I think the scant flesh on the carcass of this one is its big problem. It really needed some fleshing out before being served up to feast.
