Disturbing sci fi (Event Horizon (DVD))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Event Horizon (DVD)
Date:	19/09/09 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Performances and effects

Disadvantages: Not very original

note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room

Paul W.S. Anderson is frequently criticised for just butchering various series, such as in his adaptations of the Resident Evil video games, and with his version of the Alien vs Predator mythology, but he has made at least one good film, in Event Horizon, a visually impressive, well acted look at cabin fever on a spaceship.

The film opens in the Year 2047, when a spaceship called Event Horizon manages to send a distress message to Earth after being presumed destroyed for many years. A salvage vessel is sent to check for survivors and retain the ship, led by Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne). The vessel also carries Event Horizon's designer, Doctor William Weir (Sam Neill), in case the ship has encountered structural difficulties that impair their mission.

They learn that the ship was used to experiment with black holes, and when they observe the last recording of the ship, it is clear that something drastically went wrong, as the last recording is frenzied, with the crew members seemingly having become savages. However, when they board the ship, things go from bad to worse, with the crew one by one turning insane and attempting to commit suicide as they meet the strange materials on the ship. Slowly, they begin turning against one another, and it becomes a race both to stay alive and not to turn murderous and insane like most of the crew have.

Although this is a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and not a pinch as clever, it's an impressively designed film that's got the cerebral and visceral elements to please just about every fan of the genre, even if it is relatively low-rent otherwise.

In what is a surprisingly good outing from Paul W.S. Anderson, we get a trippy, visually pleasing psychological sci-fi thriller. Sam Neill is the best of show as the appropriately disturbing antagonist.

Summary: Derivative but entertaining