Wretched Dreck!

Rating: 1/10 (9 December 2011)

Never has so much been spent on such a horrid story! This movie is 14 years old as I write this (2011, in case you don't pay attention the date stamp). I fished it out of the $5 movie bin at Walmart this evening, choosing it for viewing because it has some big-name actors in a big-budget sci-fi movie, thus beating out Schwarzenegger's "Commando" and "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star." It came with two DVD disks, the second disk for special features.
I'll begin by pointing out the positive. The movie has aged well. The cinematography is top-notch, all the lighting, sound, props and special effects look great (to me, a completely untrained couch potato). This positive is one factor that helped me get through the movie, despite my growing irritation with it. The other was the hint that maybe I would be able to see attractive female nudity.
Unfortunately, the plot is asinine. Almost all horror movies have asinine plots, so had I known ahead of time this is supposed to be a horror movie, I might have not expected so much from it. Now I've read a few of the other negative reviews of this movie, and I can see I'm not the only person who recognizes the obvious. Virtually nothing that happens in this movie has any business being in this movie. I get angry every time I think about it. So much of the plot is perfunctory climax, bad things happening on cue, and so obvious, because EVERY SINGLE HORROR MOVIE HAS THE SAME STORY ARC! Some people like cheesiness, but this goes so much deeper than even cheesiness could describe.
It has nice props. I liked the props. I need to think about that for a little bit, until I feel better. Nice props, even though it seems silly that the living quarters look like the heart of a tokamak.
Oh, there is some female nudity in it. In the first half of the movie, we get to see a woman's bare nipple for about 0.25 seconds. I spent the next half-hour wondering why the producers even bothered putting a naked woman in the movie if that was all they were going to show. We spend more time looking into her eyeless eye sockets as she speaks to us in a calm voice. Eventually, Sam Neill's character forces the camera to lock onto those same bare breasts for a minute or so. Visually, nothing else is happening. Then, we go back to the eyeless eye sockets.
The movie attempts to introduce tension by the perfunctory personality clashes between crew members, particularly against the new person aboard. The new crew member designed a ship (the "Event Horizon") that has been lost for several years, but now has reappeared. This crew was sent to find out what happened to the "Horizon." To build this tension, in one scene, the designer shows complete disregard for another person's personal property as he attempts to explain how the ship he designed operates; so in another scene, a crew member damages the ship he built. Let's compromise the integrity of the ship we are trying to rescue, so we can even our petty score!
Anyway, nice props. Big name stars. Some glimpses of a woman's bare breasts. The Planet Neptune swirling below. Oh, wait... somehow, the "Event Horizon" is orbiting Neptune *inside* her upper atmospheric cloud bank, in clouds so dense that she can't even be seen until the rescue ship almost runs into her. So, actually, the Planet Neptune, swirling all around.
If you have any regard for scientific accuracy, you may resent this movie intensely much. If you care about logical motivations, the movie may annoy you. If you value intellectual, thoughtful stories, this movie may drive you mad.
Of course, there is eventually blood everywhere. Blood and gore and horrific things. People getting bumped in the head. Eyes being dug out of sockets. Sharp, spiky things. Dead people. Age-inappropriate children in a Rated R movie, causing havoc. That's just me, reacting to this movie.