Supernova review

certificate_15

SUPERNOVA

In Hollywood everyone can hear you scream, as Walter Hill, the original director of Supernova will testify. Hired by MGM to front this 60 million sci-fi thriller, Hill found himself at the centre of a media maelstrom when he left the film part way through production and asked to have his name removed from the credits.

When the picture finally emerged from its black hole in the US in January this year, there were no advance screenings for critics and the director was listed as one Thomas Lee (step-brother of the eponymous Alan Smithee). The film consequently crashed and burned at the box office.

Despite its unflattering reputation, Supernova isn't half bad, unspooling its cat-and-mouse scenario with maximum efficiency and minimum plot. Certainly it's a mess, especially during the opening and closing sections which are badly edited and rely too heavily on computer generated special effects, but there's still some fun to be had, and every so often, the enigmatic Thomas Lee manages to generate a modicum of tension or deliver an unexpected shock.

The setting is deep space in the early 22nd century. The crew of the medical vessel Nightingale 229, led by gruff Captain AJ Marley (Robert Forster), are engaged in a routine patrol when they receive a distress signal emanating from a supposedly deserted mining colony on a rogue moon light years away from their current position.

Having validated the identity of the sender, Karl Larson, a former lover of the ship's medical officer Kaela Evers (Angela Bassett), Marley gives the order to dimension-jump through space and rescue the stricken comrade. Unfortunately, Marley's decompression chamber malfunctions and he dies mid-jump, leaving co-pilot Nick Vanzant (James Spader) to assume control of the vessel. The ship arrives in the centre of a massive celestial storm, in direct gravitational pull from a giant blue star which is primed to explode within the next 12 hours.

To compound the crew's problems, the man claiming to be Karl Larson (Peter Facinelli) bears almost no resemblance to the man that Kaela remembers. As crew members start dying in suspicious circumstances, the few remaining survivors must unravel the secret of Larson's past and find a way to dimension-jump back to their home galaxy before the blue star goes supernova.