Supernova (2000)

Directed by Walter Hill. Starring James Spader, Angela Bassett, Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney, Lou Diamond Phillips, Wilson Cruz, Robert Forster, (voice) Vanessa Marshall. [R]

Noisy, barely-coherent sci-fi disaster cost a lot of money, looks pretty awful, and has hardly a minute of footage worth investing in. A medical spaceship answers a distress call in a distant corner of the galaxy, and rescues a lone survivor (Facinelli) who smuggles an alien artifact aboard their ship—you see where this is going. Reminiscent at times of Event Horizon, but even worse; pilot Spader seems to be doing a listless impersonation of Craig Bierko, and medical officer Bassett goes through the motions without anything on the page to work with. Agitated visuals during the crisis/action scenes inspire more nausea than excitement. Director Hill (who left the project in post-production) went credited as “Thomas Lee”; Jack Sholder and Francis Ford Coppola(!) went uncredited for their contributions during the editing and reshoot process. Further evidence of how much of a mess it all is: four different endings were shot, and the pic was initially released with a PG-13 rating, which is difficult to believe considering how much gratuitous nudity is in the R-rated home video release (this review applies to that version).

21/100