Ridiculous, generic and predictable but to its credit it is somewhat watchable

Rating: 5/10 (11 August 2016)

A rescue crew are sent in to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding a ship that disappeared into a black hole some 7 years ago. The crew manage to locate the missing ship known as 'Event Horizon' and quickly discover that all is not quite right with the Event Horizon.
As with most space related films Event Horizon has an intriguing premise and is also a film that opens up promisingly; albeit it is a tad slow and does set itself up as being more worthy than it thinks that it is. It's a pity then that the slow burn approach never really builds into anything great - it essentially cobbles together elements from many other films such as Solaris, Black Hole and Alien to name but a few making the film both generic and predictable. Interestingly, this creates a tonal clash between the first half and the second half whereby the first half is slow and pretentious (which are things I hate) and the second half is whacked out, ridiculous and quite fun to watch (which are things I love). This gives the film an uneven feel to it resulting in a film that I didn't hate, but also one that I couldn't love either.
The cast are actually good here and work well to make the second half of the film fairly intense and enjoyable; this is hampered slightly by a rather lame and predictable twist later in the film. Paul Anderson's directing is good and he mostly makes good use of the locations; the claustrophobic feel that he gives to the film is good and he injects several shots of adrenalin to the picture which does make the second half of the film pass by much quicker than the first half.
Yes if we're being honest this is a poor man's Alien and if you're looking for anything remotely original or intelligent then you're best off looking elsewhere. Even though the film seems to start and end on 2 different tones there is just about enough going on throughout the 90 minutes to make it work, and this results in a film that is neither brilliant nor ground-breaking, but one that is bearable and watchable.