Reviews Of Movies I've Never Seen
SuperNova Redefines The Phrase "To Suck"
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A new film with Angela Bassett and James Spader came out in January, and it's called SuperNova. One of several taglines for this MGM spectacle reads: "Fear is deeper than space."
And greed is deeper than bullshit. This film sucked so bad that MGM had an entire page of ad banners linked from its main SuperNova page, alongside links to film stills and storyline. When you hand out free advertising for online reviews, you're either hoping for a hail mary of a marketing blitz, or drunk on wine coolers and Sweet Tarts. This is a film that has posters dating back to 1997; one in particular reads "Can anything save you at the end of the universe?" Only if there are no theatres and lots of things to do besides going to see this dreck. At the bottom of this poster are the words "1997...Beware." Beware, indeed! This film was so bad, that only three people were present on a Saturday night showing at 7:00pm. I was one of them; two teen-age girls were also present. Ten minutes into the film they were discussing whether or not to leave, but for some reason they stayed.
The biggest risk taken by the producers of this film is actually showing it to audiences in theaters. This film is afraid of offending anyone. The cast is a politically correct mix of black, white, Latino, and other (which includes Artificial Intelligence). It's rated PG-13 for quick scenes of nudity, not enough for an offending R rating. Butts and boobs are shown, but they are only little boobies, mind you. The hooters are shown in silhouette from a distance. And thanks for the nudity, which compensates for lack of a plot. The script is cobbled together from several films, and to cover its weaknesses would require that it show more skin than Caligula.
The Fly The captain of a medical vessel is grafted into the plexiglass during a light-speed jump through space en route to an emergency rescue. In The Fly, Jeff Goldblum's character is mixed with a fly, and later with the genetic machine itself. Alien Ever since this landmark film, answering a distress signal from another spacecraft has foreshadowed serious trouble. An alien/human hybrid creature is expelled from an observation deck on a spacecraft, which in this cheap film is the substitute for an airlock. In Alien, Sigourney Weaver tricks the monster into an airlock before blasting it into the vacuum of space, which she (wrongly) presumes will kill it. Alien 2 Spader's character uses large mechanical pincers to grab the alien/human hybrid and move him into an observation bay, where he is expelled from the spacecraft. Sigourney Weaver's Ripley character does the same thing in the Alien sequel to again flee the monster. Friday the 13th The alien/human hybrid (from here on, "hybrid") spends 1/3 of the film stalking crew members and killing them, sometimes with an axe. Michael Myers preferred weapon of choice is an axe, and he knew how to use it. Godzilla Vs. Anyone At one point, the hybrid fights Spader's character, who is in a spacesuit. This resembles the Japanese Godzilla films: Godzilla, and his mortal enemy for a given film, are actually men in rubber suits. Godzilla is grabbed by his tail, swung around a few times, then launched through the air, causing dizziness and head-shaking, to clear the cobwebs. Then, of course, Godzilla recovers and starts kicking serious Mothra ass, or whichever mortal-enemy-ass it is he has to kick. Spader's character is the Godzilla in this film: a man in a rubber suit, being flung through the air so he can crash into cheap boxes made to look like cargo, but actually present so he doesn't break every stunt bone in his body when he lands. The Abyss The special effects for the alien artifact look like those in The Abyss, which also starred a psycho in tight quarters on a craft far removed from human civilization. Jackie Brown Robert Forster was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in this film. His bail-bondsman character fell for a black woman, and he helped her resolve some trouble she was part of. In Supernova, he helps a black woman avoid trouble, only to have his replacement fall for her and save her from more trouble. When Bassett and Spader return, the AI Sweetie pronounces "There has been a 2% transfer of genetic material." Spader and Bassett each have one brown and one blue eye now! Cheap special effects provided by nothing more than colored contact lenses; I estimate a whole $200 spent! Nothing like busting the bank on mind-blowing special f/x!!! Had they spent any money or been willing to take any risks, I have a suggestion. Next time forget the cheap and cheesy contacts; give her one of his testicles and give him one of her tits! Now that's a genetic mix-up I'd pay $7.00 to see!
As for the storyline to SuperNova, a stranger is taken aboard a medical craft as a nearby star approaches supernova. If I remember my science correctly, supernovas have the potential to become black holes if their gravitational forces are strong enough to invert them. Black holes are strong enough to bend light waves and eat them, strong enough to devour planetary systems and everything within reach. The catch is, that supernovas are irrelevant to the plot. The ship is going to crash on a planet, and I don't remember hearing anything in the film about a dying sun or gravitational forces or black holes. There were plenty of huge sucking forces in this film, but they were only powerful enough to pull $7.00 out of my wallet. This is why Supernova redefines the phrase "to suck". |
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