Wolff rating: MOSTLY HARMLESS
Plot summary: A bunch of convicts and a bunch of kids try to defend a mining station against a rival company, except their station manager is a turncoat. Or something like that.
Biased, pithy comments: One of a small horde of SF movies derived completely from ``Aliens'' and ``Star Wars.'' This film doesn't really have a single new or creative scene in it anywhere. That's not really a surprise, of course, given that the king of all derivative theater was at its helm---our good buddy Rolan Emmerlich, directing his soon-to-be-co-producer Dean Devlin. Like most Emmerlich movies, this is filled with roads not taken, and instead is a group of more or less exciting action scenes from other movies glued together. However, unlike ``Godzilla'' or ``ID4,'' this film doesn't make a whit of sense. Likewise, the characters are interchangeable to the point where my wife couldn't tell them apart. The lead character (Pare) drains the energy from every scene he's in, and you can almost hear the crew yawning while he's saying his gutteral, emotionless lines. Likewise, the space combat scenes are pro forma and show Emmerlich's unholy fascination with helicopters and jets flying through trenches, although these show huge gaps in physics (How the jets stay up given they don't have wings? Why don't they have surface-to-air missles around their emplacements?). No, skip this unless you're into weird homoerotic overtones or are a die-hard Brian Thompson fan.
Other Notes: Homoerotic overtones? Yup. I dunno what you think of, but whenever I think of muscular convicts and pubescent boys living alone in space with only one mother-like woman aboard, I think Greek love. And, indeed, it's hinted at, and even the supposedly ``straight'' characters say lines that, in other contexts, would be awfully suggestive. Brian Thompson, for those of you not taking notes, is a mesomorphic actor who has made it fairly big as the unstoppable alien hitman on the ``X-Files.''
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Michael Pare, Lisa Eichhorn, Dean Devlin, Brian Thompson, Stephen Geoffreys, Leon Rippy, and a glimpse of Malcolm McDowell as the Generic Evil Guy.
Directed by: Rolan Emmerlich