Not great, but not a bad rental.

Rating: 7/10 (25 July 2004)

There was nothing particularly brilliant nor bad about this movie. I borrowed the DVD from a friend and watched it late one Saturday night and found it entertaining. There was a cool visual feel that sucked me in right away and the script and direction actually did a very good job at creating an eerie alien world. It reminded me of the world that Riddley Scott created in the first Aliens. You don't know very much about the world, but you know enough to let your imagination fill in the oh so creepy AND curious details. Its rare these days that a movie actually assumes you have some imagination and even rarer that it tries to engage it! Case in point, some characters don't speak English. Instead of giving them bad accents or putting up subtitles, the director intentionally keeps you in the dark. You don't really need to know that `ensign green #1' says to `ensign green #2', `I am scared.' `Yes, me too.' Instead, the director relies on the actors to *emote* that, and again, your mind fills in the details-far more effective.

I am not really a big fan of Diesel, and knew nothing about the supporting cast. But they could actually act! Even the minor characters played their `ensign green' roles well. You know that all the characters will not make it and many will die in a morally `appropriate manner' and I get annoyed at films that try to kid us about this little fact. The film generally does a good job not trying to play this silly game.
Overall the film is more horror than Sci-Fi but it did a good job of creating tension and is worth a rental. If you can, watch it on DVD as there is a good visual texture to it that.