Supernova

Supernova (2000)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Walter Hill... and Jack Sholder... and even Francis Ford Coppola

Starring: James Spader, Angela Bassett, Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney, Lou Diamond Phillips

From: MGM

Here is a movie I had never seen until late last night. It's not an all-time terrible movie, but... it's still no good.

In the Letterboxd review below I reference the official trailer for the movie. It is SO misleading in tone at first I thought it was one of those spoof trailers a la “someone cutting together a Mary Poppins trailer to make it look like a horror film” sort of deal but it's actually legit. The trailer, then the review. I won't return until Monday night.

Unlike those that recently saw this motion picture via the new Scream Factory Blu (I wish I could see the half hour documentary on the disc about the disastrous production of this movie); rather I saw it last night via the MGMHD channel. I had never seen this movie before-the toxic buzz scared me away-but after seeing some people I know recently talk about it here and elsewhere I figured now was the time to check it out. I had never even seen the trailer before. As others have noted, it is SO inaccurate as to what the movie actually is. Just why did they try to make it look like a space comedy with horror elements?

First things first, the movie isn't so awful I was filled with rage or had to fight myself from changing the channel. Much of the CGI doesn't look too bad and at least the capable cast tries (even if James Spader is really the only person to succeed, w/ his Spadering). Unfortunately, things are just oh so dull and it's really derivative of many other films, all of which are better and more interesting than this.

To echo others, it's just obvious there were production woes. Things can be real disjointed and too often it doesn't make much sense. All I know is that MGM constantly clashed with original director Walter Hill and Hill got fed up and left. In came in veteran genre director Jack Sholder than even Francis Ford Coppola, but nothing could save what is a boring tale of a medical spaceship answering a distress call and picking up a mysterious passenger with an “alien artifact”. Things happen then we get a pretty goofy and unsatisfying ending.

There isn't too much else to say about this. While it lost a lot of money for MGM I will presume they have no one to blame but themselves for that. There's really no reason to ever see this and I presume the featurette about the behind the scenes drama is much more engrossing than the actual film.