major disappointment

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2001)

I really wanted to like this dog, I really tried to find SOMETHING redeeming about it. No film should make its viewer work so hard.
The topic of time/space travel, of bending space to travel through time, were great in the trailer to get me to go and rent this video.
The revolving magnetic thingy reminded me of the contraption they built in Contact (which is a splendid film, one for the ages in my opinion); the space orb that gets into your head reminded me of Sphere.
However, this...this, "film" (and I use the term loosely here) was just bad. I like Lawrence Fishburn, I like Kathleen Quinlan, and Sam Neil, but, sheeesh, this film was just bad.
I shouldn't even bother to warn of SPOILERS because I'd honestly recommend never wasting your time with this film, but incase you do have a need to see for yourself, skip this next paragraph, and then come back to it after you've watched.
I just wonder WHY? Why would any parallel universe be so black and white "evil", and why would it want to torture people? And, if it was really out looking for people to torture, why not just use "itself" to travel to earth and pick up humans to its heart's content?
I've seen some bad movies in my day (Mimic, Deep Blue Sea, etc) but this one was just painful.
I don't hold this against any of the actors, either. Every once in a while a bad script is taken up with hope by an actor looking to bring something to the screen. But, man, as a sci-fi, it had no feel of authenticity, no reasonable situations (Dr. Weir says "hey, that's not a load-bearing structure" and macho driver says
"it is now" -- I mean, REALLY, if you've travelled "3 billion miles" and care about your life, would you ignore the specialist who's sent to guide you, and risk scuttling the whole mission? It was just stupid), no engrossing, engaging "OK, I'm into this story..."
Sorry for ranting. I just had to get that off my chest. This film was
bad.