From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Supernova released in 2000.
Starring:
Angela Bassett, James Spader, Peter Facinelli, Lou Diamond Phillips and Robin Tunney
Directed by:
Walter Hill
Genre:
Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
MPAA Rating:
PG-13
Budget:
$90,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb Rating is currently:
4.8
The Synopsis is:
In 2101 a emergency medical rescue vessel, the Nightingale 229 and it’s crew encounter a mysterious survivor of a mining colony and an alien artifact.
*THE REST OF THE REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. *
Story:
The original script, written in 1988 by William Malone was about a space expedition that discovers artefacts from an alien civilization and brings them back to Earth; one of the artefacts unleashes an evil force from hell.
Wow, that sounds like a fantastic idea, but that’s a totally different film from what this became.
It was originally called "Dead Star" and supposed to be a space version of House on Haunted Hill (1959 and also 1999), "Hellraiser (1987) in outer space" and Event Horizon 1997.
H.R. Giger even manufactured incredible drawings capturing the vision of the original idea.
William Malone would have been perfect to direct his own vision, but the studio went with Geoffrey Wright, and then Walter Hill.
When Walter Hill was hired to direct, he rewrote the script to lure in big name actors at the time and he was concerned that people would confuse the film with Alien released in 1979, which he produced.
However, since changing the script, the studio angrily cut the budget halfway through production. Walter left the film, but and was credited as Thomas Lee.
MGM hired Jack Sholder to try and save the movie. But his version didn’t please the executives.
And sadly in his version many of Hills scenes were deleted which included more character development and the original rock/electronic-like score by Burkhard von Dallwitz. These were all attributes which I felt the film needed.
Even the mighty, Francis Ford Coppola was brought in to partially edit the film at one point.
So much of what we see on screen is a total mishap of vision, studio intervention, and editing. It's a classic case of too many cooks in the kitchen.
There are so many wonderful sci-fi ideas in the film. But what really lowers the quality of the story is the a combination of bad character decisions for the convenience of the plot and where they didn’t take risks in the film. And the story ends up being a little generic with glimpses of what could have been.
I was impressed with the idea, but I was just a little disappointed that they didn’t do more with it.
Pacing:
At an hour and 30 minutes it seems a lot longer. It’s full of events that happen, but not all of them are exciting or meaningful.
Challenge:
The beginning of the film establishes the main personal struggles of the crew members of the Nightingale 229 medical vessel.
They get a call for help from the other side of the universe and must make a jump through a wormhole to get there.
During their jump they lose their captain and bring on board a stow away Troy Larson, the son of Karl Larson.
We recognize right away that Troy is a scammer. There is just something about him that is untrustworthy.
When we first see him in all of his naked glory, he is distorted in the glass, hinting to the audience that he isn't normal. The whole situation is not normal.
Troy has abnormal bone growth and is harboring a mysterious alien artifact.
This alien artifact is the top dog of all challenges. The film explains that it is a container of 9th dimensional isotropic matter that has the sole purpose of what the computer calls dispersal. It’s a bomb designed to destroy everything in the universe and replenish elements essential to life to keep the universe young.
When civilizations become too advanced, they find the artifact and set off the bomb that the aliens plant. It begins the cycle of creation again.
Anyone in contact with the artifact gets a euphoric feeling from it as well as some physical advantages such as youthing and bone growth as Troy did.
The doctor on the ship, Kaela Evers says that ‘who ever they are (referring to the aliens) they are as smart as God and a lot less nice.”
I thought that was an ingenious plot device and there was so much potential to build many stories around this particular artifact.
Well the artifact has had some effect on Troy, which in fact is not Troy, but is actually Karl Larson, Kaela’s ex, who has de-aged so much, she doesn't recognize him.
And Karl makes a formidable threat, deceiving them, while slowly taking over the ship. He’s not very smart though, because he doesn’t know that the artifact is a bomb and never looked into it.
However he is a good villain because from his selfish point of view he thinks it is treasure for what it has done for him.
From his point of view he’s right. The people on this ship want to make permanent decisions about his treasure that was in his possession when they found him. It is his property. In all fairness, it’s not theirs to decide what to do with it.
Where Karl wanes as a villain is the fact that he is so immature and petty. During his fight with one of the medical crew, Yerzy, he refers to an earlier conversation where Yerzy wanted to split the profits unfairly from Karl’s point of view. And that animosity toward the crew members for not supporting his greedy exploits is the main reason he starts murdering everyone.
Empathy:
I was very empathic to the good guys in this film, but most of them are not smart at all for the convenience of the story and that doesn’t sit well with me.
That is always my biggest issue with horror films, is how they simply set characters up to die.
The one film that really did it right to me was Aliens, where everyone was really giving their best to survive and they just didn’t know the extent to how the aliens could be a danger.
Otherwise though, each character on the Nightingale had really good development, but not all likeable.
The most disposable of the crew is the captain, A.J. Marley is working on his PHD and doing his dissertation on the cartoon entertainment and social research of the 20th century.
His biggest failure as a character is deciding to go after a beacon for help, when there was a medical vessel closer to the call. Then going ahead with the space jump when one of the containment units was damaged. Then exchanging himself for Kayla as if there were no other members of the crew of lesser importance than the captain. Noble, but dumb.
Even in the film one of the crew members mentioned his bad judgement.
The next most disposable character are the lovers, Yerzy and Danika, who are pretty much throw away characters meant to die as you would have in a horror film.
They are the medical crew members that use all of their spare time to have sex. But there is something deeper. They want to have a baby one day. Which establishes that babies are hard to come by in this universe. You need forms and it’s seems really complicated.
They make it known that humans that are not modified can have babies. Danica has a weird look of trepidation when Yerzy tells her that they can do it. Was she modified? Was she modified to be over sexualised?
Danica is told to keep an eye on Troy and you could almost see her drool over him as soon as she sees him. It’s no surprise when he easily seduces her with little effort at all. She realises much too late that he is a deceiver.
Yersy is all the while getting too close to the artifact to care. He to is becoming younger and stronger before he unsuccessfully faces off with Troy.
Next is Benjamin who is a computer programmer and he is teaching the ship’s computer, Sweetie to engage in human emotional concepts. His dispatching is probably the hardest to watch as he tries with all of his might to get Sweetie to choose her fondness for him over protocol.
Nick Vanzant is the co-pilot of the ship with a background of drug addiction, prison and is ex military. He’s a layered character you want to get to know more about. You can see he’s suffering from some PTSD, but whatever he’s been through, now, he’s trying to do the right thing and when he does, he does it well. He’s amazing! And your really root for him.
I have to be honest and say that I really didn’t like the character of Dr. Kaela Evers in the beginning. She comes off as if she has a chip on her shoulder. She’s cold and the film barely gets into it, but she is terrified of her ex, Karl. Somehow he is connected to her not being able to have kids and that must be pretty awful for her.
After she bonds with Nick, she seems more human and she becomes more likable especially when they begin to start to act like a team.
What I also like about Kaela is that she is pretty tough, not because she’s mostly cold to everyone, but she holds her own against Karl when the climax of the film requires him to threaten her. She is vulnerable, but not a damsel.
Technical:
The special effects look good in some scenes and still hold up today. All of the scenes showing the Nightingale 229 were pretty good and the wormhole jump was a visual spectacle.
The makeup effects were well amazing for the captain after his accident featuring an elaborate and pretty incredibly detailed disfigurement.
Karl’s final monster makeup was supposed to be more monster-like, but the studio wanted the actor’s face to be seen more. At the time the actor playing Karl, Peter Facinelli was a heartthrob for many teenage girls so the studio wanted to take advantage of that.
To me it was reminiscent of the vampire makeup from Lost Boys released in 1987. It wasn’t innovative, but it was enough to let us know that Karl was changing into something inhuman.
Then we have the eye color swap, which is a great idea. However, perhaps it was the type of contacts that were available at the time, but it looked pretty bad. They have the bluest contact for Nick, when his eyes are a completely different kind of blue and the darkest contact for Kaela’s eyes, but through out the film, the actress playing her, Angela Bassett is wearing light brown contact lenses.
The editing was interesting. We know that Francis Ford Coppola took over the editing at some point and decided to put together the zero gravity love scene between Nick and Kaela using footage of the actors playing Danika and Troy with digital effects in order to add more to the relationship between Nick and Kaela.
I didn’t mind it so much, but it messes with the continuity a bit, because many people have noted how Karla and Nick act as if they’ve never been naked together before they enter the pod together at the end of the film.
Because the film passed so many hands, many cuts were made that can be seen in promotional stills which were not included in the film nor the deleted scenes on DVD/Blu-Ray versions of the movie.
The actual look of the film is a little typical of the early 2000’s with lots of blue and steel. In my opinion it was beautifully shot. Much of the camera work was handheld… lots of nice handheld shots.
There were lots of dutch angles, flares into the camera and shots distorted by glass to denote something in the scene is off. I loved all of that stuff.
The soundtrack was supposed to originally have a very rock/electronic-like score by Burkhard von Dallwitz that I had the pleasure of hearing. It was pretty awesome and would have lent and innovative touch to the film.
When Jack Sholder took over the film, he switched out the soundtrack for a more conventional one by David C. Williams. The good thing about this score is how haunting the music is and I enjoyed it.
So the music could have gone either way.
Performances:
For me James Spader really makes this film so good to me. I just love him in this film. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him in this beefy, tough guy no nonsense role. I would have never guessed he would be a great hero. He’s fantastic.
Up until then he was mostly known for playing really smarmy characters. He looks like an average good looking guy, but he has so many subtleties to his expressions and language that really make him stand out as a unique actor. It’s always a pleasure to see him on screen.
In this, I love how his character, Nick reacts to danger, and I also love his very short scene seducing Kaela played by Angela Bassett. The facial expressions between the two actors were very captivating.
Angela Bassett is excellent as the doctor. And I think she played well off James Spader. These are heavy duty actors so you really see how serious they are taking their parts no matter what was going on behind the scenes.
Peter Facinelli was great in this. He did a good job playing the villain. He hams it up a bit but it worked for me. Any problems with him on screen, I feel had to do with the dialogue he was given to say.
I think the other actors were absolutely wasted in the film especially Robert Forster and Lou Diamond Phillips. These are great actors only put in the film to die. It just didn’t feel right.
Best:
I just love the very last part of the film from the point Karl reveals himself to Kaela until the very end. I loved all of that part.
I especially loved when Nick flies back to the ship and taunts Karl a little bit. It’s so edgy and you really want him to come back and kick Karl’s tush!
The ending:
Four different endings were filmed. But I guess the ending as is will do. I really liked it and I loved the added touch of Sweetie telling Kaela that she is pregnant especially since we were told that she couln’t have kids. It’s a bittersweet ending.
Wish List:
So first of all, I wish that the film had made a decision to be a mesmerizing space action thriller, a monster slasher film in space, or it’s original concept as a Hellraiser in space. All really awesome ideas, but pick one!
Look, I’m not in favor of the last two. I really didn’t like the Hellraiser films or Event Horizon. Not my kind of entertainment. But I’d wouldn’t mind a film with bold direction that was compelling and thought provoking if it were those kinds of films.
The film turned out to be more like Days of our lives set in space with a little murder and action toward the end.
One thing that could have elevated the film, was to provide some purpose for the characters other than dying. Many people think that caring about characters mean that they all need a backstory. This is a perfect example of giving every character a backstory that doesn't make them likable enough that when they die, you care. Make characters smart and impossible to have the end of the story occur without their help. Give them a contribution or why even have them exist in the story.
In fact, I think that the film could have done well with less characters and more of a deeper connection between Kaela and Nick. It would have been great to get more of a background for our main characters.
I also wish that Kaela explained her experience with Karl. She was afraid of him. Did he murder her entire family, did he hit her, cheated on her, or all three? What happened?
She says she can’t have children? Why? Did he force her to become modified?
Nick too. How did he get hooked on drugs? What got him straight again? What's his motivation for straightening himself out? He’s a fascinating character with lots of ways you can expand his impact on the audience.
Also, I wish there was more time to develop trust and a deeper relationship between kaela and Nick. It was a last minute idea and it felt that way for the audience as well.
We have a woman who has been possibly abused by an ex boyfriend and decides to just throw caution to the wind and sleep with a guy she hardly knows. It just seemed a bit to quick of a development.
I wish that Karl had better dialogue written for the character, where he could have been more of a sophisticated enemy, you love to hate.
I wish it weren’t so easy for Karl to take over the ship. He seems too magical of a villain to believe because he’s too invincible. The audience is left to believe he can do this from his past, but we don’t know much about his past.
Not only that, with the crew written to be so stupid, he is given full reign of the ship and not quarantined. He easily has access to security sensitive control panels so he can give voice commands to Sweetie, and access to the helm of the ship as well.
Wait… wait… guys I have another wish for this film and it’s a big one. Well you know how I said earlier that the Captain made the wrong decision to send the ship to the distress call. There is more to it, that creates a huge plot hole in this film that really gets me going because I know it was written to create tension for the characters. Once they got to their destination and saw what happened to the captain, they should have gone back home for repairs.
Another option would be for the writers to keep the Captain a part of the story and die some other way in order to make Nick the captain later on in the film.
Enjoyment:
When I saw the advertisements for the film back in 2000, I really didn’t think much of it. I love science fiction, but the marketing didn’t snag me because the trailer appeared to be a very sexually charged film that turns into a slasher action film. And although it’s not too far from what happens, the use of pop songs like "Fly" by Sugar Ray and "Momma Told Me Not To Come" by Three Dog Night.
I wasn’t interested. It just seemed as if it was going to be another one of those slasher horror movies set in outer space and I wasn’t having any part of it.
I finally got to see the film more recently and I was surprised that it was reasonably good. It had a decent story progression and I don’t feel as if this is a horror movie. There is hardly any gore or scares.
It was fascinating to me because in spite of the film’s problems, it’s an entertaining film for me because of James Spader’s and Peter Facinelli’s unique performance, and Angela Bassett’s professionalism, which really saves this film and kept my eyes glued to the screen.
Along with great cinematography, style and some really cool story elements that impressed me a lot, I am happy to add this film to my guilty pleasures.
My Rating:
8.2
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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