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"SUPERNOVA"
(2000) (James Spader, Angela Bassett) (PG-13)

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QUICK TAKE:
Sci-fi: The crew of a deep-space hospital ship tries to avoid both the madman they've rescued as well as the pending turn of a nearby star into a supernova.
PLOT:
In the deep reaches of space, the medical emergency rescue ship Nightingale receives a distress call from an abandoned lunar mining colony across the galaxy. Due to the extreme distance they must travel, Captain A.J. Marley (ROBERT FORSTER) orders that the ship and her crew, including co-pilot Nick Vanzant (JAMES SPADER) and Chief Medical Officer Kaela Evers (ANGELA BASSETT), go through a dimension jump. While a proven method of quickly traveling across space, it's also quite dangerous.

That point is proven when the Nightingale materializes in the strong gravitation pull of a star preparing to go supernova, and Marley is killed due to a fault in his safety pod. Having to take control, and with a stoic demeanor, Vanzant manages to save the ship and the rest of the crew -- that includes Benjamin (WILSON CRUZ), Yerzy (LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS) and Danika (ROBIN TUNNEY) - from crashing into the lunar surface.

Even so, he's told by the ship's computer, nicknamed Sweetie, that they'll only have a margin of eleven minutes in between the moment when they'll be able to jump through space again and before the star goes supernova. Things become even more complicated when the crew picks up the sole survivor from the moon, Troy Larson (PETER FACINELLI), the apparent son of a man Kaela once knew intimately.

Troy admits to directly contacting the Nightingale for help and the crew begins to wonder about him and a strange alien artifact he possesses. As the crew becomes intrigued by Troy's odd biological makeup and begins to more closely examine the radiant artifact, they soon realize they've picked up far more than they bargained for. With time running out and discovering that they have a maniac of sorts on their hands, Vanzant and his crew do what they can to survive and get the ship out of harm's way.

OUR TAKE: 2 out of 10
In "Supernova," a film that's certain to be the first big budget flop of the year, the villain of the story - upon meeting the crew of the ship sent to rescue him - states that he was essentially acting as a scavenger, stealing items from an abandoned lunar mining colony. Considering what then follows, that identifier seems rather appropriate since this sci-fi film has obviously taken on the same role, ripping and stealing bits and pieces from far superior films and trying to sell them as a collective whole as something new.

Of course that's not a new phenomenon as many a cheap, low-budget sci-fi flick has ripped off a superior one in hopes of profiting off the success, name and/or plot of the original. The problem is when major studio productions, with gargantuan budgets that could support some of the smaller countries of the world, are the ones doing the pillaging.

Such is the case with this film, a long-troubled project that's had so many problems that it's reportedly been sitting on the shelf and/or repeatedly visiting the editing room for the past two years while MGM tried to figure out what to do with it.

In fact, the film's director, Walter Hill (best known for his 1982 film "48 Hours," with his recent efforts being "Wild Bill" and "Last Man Standing") had his named replaced in the credits with the anonymous pseudonym, "Thomas Lee" (instead of the standard "Alan Smithee"). Then there are the allegations that famed director Francis Ford Coppola stepped in to supervise the film's editing.

If that's the case, I'd hate to see what it earlier looked like, since this version is incredibly choppy and abruptly starts with an opening sequence that's poorly introduced, horribly paced, and immediately gives the film a low budget feel despite the vast dollars spent on it.

Considering that reportedly huge budget, one would have hoped that some of the money would have been spent on a decent - and original script - but alas, that's not the case here. No, what's obviously happened is that screenwriter David Campbell Wilson ("The Perfect Weapon") who works from a story by William Malone ("Universal Soldier: The Return" and the director of "House on Haunted Hill") and Daniel Chuba (a visual effects producer turned writer) has simply gone on a larcenous tour of filmdom's better-related efforts.

As such, the film should have a rather familiar ring to it. The basic story of a spaceship picking up a lone survivor who then terrorizes the crew while the captain is checking out the stranger's deserted base is simply a retreading of the far superior and highly more imaginative and suspenseful "Dead Calm" as if filtered through and mixed with elements lifted directly from the first two "Alien" films.

Such plagiary is usually far more often found in the works of high school or college screenwriters - who consciously or unconsciously pay homage to their favorite films - than those by "professional" filmmakers. To make matters worse, it doesn't end there as elements from "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" (the impervious, quick healing villain) and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (the alien device here is near exactly the same as the destructive, but life-developing Genesis device found in that Trek flick).

Of course the theft, or, to be kind, the lifting of such material isn't bad enough, so it's of little surprise that the "new" work -- assembled from those stolen elements - doesn't come anywhere near to matching the fun of the originals and only serves to remind viewers that they're watching nothing more than a copy. To cap things off, the few marginally "original" elements - such as the ship sitting near a pending supernova or the "big mystery/surprise" of Troy's connection to his father - are mostly forgotten, too easily figured out and/or clearly not used to any great extent of providing a fun and/or adventurously suspenseful experience.

Beyond the recycled plot, the dialogue is usually stiff and wooden ("They're as smart as God, but a lot less nice"), giving the moderately well-known performers - who should have known better than to sign on to a project like this - practically nothing with which to work. That, coupled with the rough and uneven editing and overall storytelling, makes for a thespian and audience nightmare as viewers then have a hard time getting to know the characters, let alone liking or caring about them.

For instance, the character embodied by James Spader ("Crash," "Stargate") is so flat and Spader plays him so stoically that you couldn't care less about him or his fate. While the film - in one of it's few shining moments -- actually pokes fun at that as the ship's computer tells his character that "she," like him, wasn't given a sense of humor, some greater dimensionality would have benefited both the film and the audience's reaction to it.

None of the other performers fare any better. Angela Bassett ("How Stella Got Her Groove Back," "What's Love Got to Do With It?") inhabits what's presumably the Ripley role (Sigourney Weaver's character in the "Alien" films), but can't do anything with it. The same holds true for Lou Diamond Phillips ("Bats," "La Bamba") in another of his beefed up roles, or Robin Tunney ("End of Days," "The Craft") as his girlfriend of sorts.

Peter Facinelli ("Can't Hardly Wait," "Foxfire") is unimaginatively cast as the "Energizer Bunny" type villain and doesn't make much of a lasting impression, while the only one Wilson Cruz (TV's "Party of Five") makes is as one of those old "Star Trek" extras who's earmarked for termination at the hands of some alien. Only Robert Forster ("Jackie Brown," "The Black Hole") is smart as his character makes a quick exit, thus freeing him from having to suffer along with the audience.

To be fair, the film has a few decent special effects and does manage to become a tad interesting once the cat and mouse games begin. As a result, for anyone who hasn't seen any of the previously mentioned films, this one might seem like something of a real, or at least partial hoot.

For everyone else, however, the similarities to the many far superior films will be too obvious, the acting and dialogue too wooden, and the thought of millions and millions of dollars being spent on a forged project far too disconcerting for anyone with anything resembling a conscience. As such, this "Supernova" quickly burns out and is nothing short of a grand disappointment. It rates as just a 2 out of 10.




Reviewed January 14, 2000 / Posted January 14, 2000


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