| This movie is cool: It starts as one thing, ends as something else. Visual effects are stunning, and story is interesting. Directed by Walter Hill under a Pseudonym! Basically, the film seems to be about changes - The Gimmick of the film is a "Bomb" that will destroy, but also rebuild, life as in the Genesis Device from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" - But not a direct ripoff of that gimmick, just similar. Also similar to the Necromonger Religion of "The Chronicles of Riddick" - Where the Necromongers must destroy every planet in the known universe before <more> they can go to the new, unspoiled "Underverse", so this is not a new concept in science fiction destruction gadgets, just an interesting one.The Gimmick has a physical affect on the characters of Yerzy Penalosa Lou Diamond Phillips and mostly on "Troy Larson" Knox White/Peter Facinelli who becomes "Karl Larson" and so they used two different, but very similar looking actors to play the Larson character, White and Facinelli... And I really haven't been able to tell where the change between actors is, perhaps it is one momentary change, or maybe they actually swap actors after a point, but the character still looks like the same person, although he is changing constantly.The ship, which is basically a deep space ambulance, responds to a call that could be considered if happening today, as a call coming in directly to the ambulance without the benefit of dialing "911" - And also, coming from a person known to a member of the crew of the ship, making the call very odd indeed.ON arrival at the the origin of the emergency call, a junk ship meets up with our ambulance and docks, containing one unconscious Troy Larson, alleged son of Karl Larson who placed the call. And that is where all the fun begins, at first this person seems to be an innocent teenager, as the film progresses, the character physically changes - From Skinny to Muscular, using bare hands to crush Lou Diamond Phillips Skull and smashes parts of the ship to pieces as if they are and probably were Tinsel.Although the last 1/3rd of the film has some insidiously sinister aspects, the ending actually leaves you with a good feeling, plus the ending is quite humorous, when you consider that Bassett and Spader, sharing a CryoTube, had a kind of "Material/Fluid Exchange?" - I laughed out loud when I heard THAT: I'm sure it was not intended to be humorous, but it is. When you think of what kind of activities there are to do while trapped in a CryoTube during a Supernova? And the film cleverly skips over the details of such, shall we say... Activities? Amen!As seen on the Sci Fi channel, many parts are hacked and cut from the film and finally seeing the entire uncut film, is much more enjoyable, making those things which interest me in the film all that much more interesting.This film is similar in some ways to Solaris, which was written by Stanislaw E Lem... Some of the premises are similar- Namely the idea of a large cosmic structure, in both films, these structures are Stars. In this case the star awaiting impending doom- Is it some kind of intelligence?Compare that to Solaris, and there are similarities- I forget the main premise of SuperNova... But that little item about a huge cosmic structure having intelligence is common to both films, but delivered quite differently in Supernova, a more subtle way. <less> |
