Supernova

December 12, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 105 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

DVD QuickTake

Not the worst Sci-Fi movie I’ve ever seen, but pretty close to the bottom of the barrel. I guess the only saving grace about this DVD is that it is a re-cut R rated edition which gives is some extra punch in the blood and gore category. I’m pretty sure they added some additional nudity into the film as well, but as I didn’t see this on in the theater I can’t be certain of that.

Overall I’d agree with the 2 star rating on this one, but that’s only because I’ve got a big soft spot for Sci-Fi movies. Take the same plot/story/actors and put in in a Western setting, and it would get 1 star. Then again, that would actually make it a comedy and could help things a little!

Original Review of the Theatrical Release

I love a good sci-fi flick. Unfortunately I didn’t see one when I went to see Supernova. The movie has a great premise, a pretty good story, but the execution just wasn’t there.

The story features a spaceship called the Nightingale, a medical rescue unit. Think of these guys as kind of like deep space paramedics. While on patrol, they receive a distress call from a distant galaxy. The rescue finds themselves in the company of a strange survivor and an even strange artifact which he brings on board. And if that’s not enough they’re nearly out of gas and caught in the pull of a giant star that is about to go supernova.

This thing just doesn’t work. The cast does an adequate job, though I have a hard time accepting James Spader as the tough cool hero. But it’s not like the performances matter since they spend only a couple of minutes each on character development. The special effects budget must’ve been the $1.98 they found underneath some seat cushions. The story lends itself nicely to what could’ve been some great space scenes with some good booms and visuals, but the pay off just isn’t there. Some of the quick cuts and lack of conclusions to scenes also makes me think they did a quick edit job to prune this thing back from an R rating to the PG-13 rating it has now, presumably to try to pull from a larger audience base. The end result of all of this is a movie that looks bad and just doesn’t flow well.

It’s bad enough that the movie wets our appetite for some good deep space sci-fi effects and gives us a half limp payoff, but even worse is the sex. They went to the trouble of setting up several sex scenes, but this movie is PG-13 so we get to see a couple of hairy male butts and only a glimpse of the females. What’s the point? This isn’t a romance and the sex isn’t really used to progress the storyline or develop the characters, so it’s they worked in some T&A scenes again without the payoff.

Again, this movie just doesn’t work. This thing gets 2 stars from me by the skin of it’s teeth. It can definitely wait for video, there’s nothing in this movie to make it necessary to see it on the big screen, and no reason to rush out to the theater. Maybe there’s an unrated director’s cut waiting in the wings for DVD that will be better.

Posted by John | Filed Under 2 Stars, Action, Angela Bassett, DVD, James Spader, Lou Diamond Phillips, PG-13, Robert Forester, SciFi