Supernova


Directed by: Thomas Lee (aka Walter Hill)
Written by:William Malone, Daniel Chuba
Starring: James Spader, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Lou Diamond Phillips, Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney, Wilson Cruz
Released: September 21, 2000
Grade: C+

The most honest way of judging a film is to disregard any previous news or reviews of the film in question.  With Supernova, this is a very difficult proposition.  The film was in trouble from when production began.   Director Walter Hill left the film during post-production and asked his name to be removed from the credits.  Thus, the pseudonym Thomas Lee appears as the director’s name in the film’s closing credits.  Incidentally, Francis Ford Coppola, who didn't want the credit either, finished the film.

The film opened to very poor reviews is the United States and the public were in agreement.  A check of the Internet Movie Database reveals over 800 people have cast a vote on the film with the average score being 3.9 out of 10.  Rumoured to cost $60m, the film made a total U.S. gross of $14.2m creating a massive write-off for the struggling MGM Studios.

So with all this negative publicity, there’s nothing I can really do to improve it as I was equally disappointed.  It’s a rip-off of all previous science fiction films.  The crew of a rescue ship travels to a distress call only to find that the person rescued carries a hidden secret and wants to kill the inhabitants of the ship.

The special effects look very mediocre, the acting is poor and the script is lacking interest beyond recognition.  This is the sort of film that should never have received a release in Australia and would have been best suited to a straight-to-video release.  It super...sucked.