Supernova: tom & jerry in space
A good eighty-percent of science fiction in the movies owes everything to horror. Yes, Alien was great, but structurally, what's the real difference in it and, say, Halloween? Event Horizon and Hellraiser? Yet we tend to privilege sci-fi over such horror, if only the slightest bit, largely because the emptiness of space allows one thing horror always has to work so hard for: isolation. Whereas most of the final girls in horror could just up and leave town, get themselves out of danger, (if they weren't morally obliged to stop Jason, etc) Ripley's forever stuck on that ship. To leave is to die, whereas to stay is to at least have a chance. Meaning her staying on-board doesn't require any suspension of disbelief, as it often does in horror, where you're often tempted to talk to the screen, tell these characters to just leave already. Ripley can't. Supernova is no different here. It's essentially a horror movie set in space, albeit a horror movie with James Spader, which ups the ante considerably.
Too, instead of opening with a bang, Supernova starts rather thematically, with a 22nd (or so) century rerun of a Tom & Jerry episode. Initially, it looks to be just fluff, something we can share with these future humans, a comical bridge from us to them, which isn't an uncommon device in sci-fi, as it allows us both to recognize these people and then identify with them. But director Thomas Lee uses it a little differently. As things unfold, Tom & Jerry seems to function almost as a comment on the genre, on how ridiculous it is that Michael Myers (Tom, here) just keeps getting up, no matter how cleverly he's killed. He's no normal cat, but of the cartoon-variety. The same goes for the 'bad' guy in Supernova, the more-than-human, Lost Boys-looking stalker (Peter Facinelli) hellbent on wiping this crew out. Granted, he does get to talk, unlike Tom, but they're essentially the same character.
Which means, yes, we need a Jerry. Enter Nick Vanzant, (Spader) recovering junkie, able pilot, on his first mission with the aptly-named Nightengale, an interstellar EMT, complete with the (by now generic) surly doctor, (Angela Basset, looking like Strange Days) token sex-kitten, (Robin Tunney; even Galaxy Quest had one) disposable captain, lovable programmer, an android, a female HAL, ('Sweetie") and Yerzy, (Lou Diamond Phillips) who's strangely showing some grey at first. Don't fret, though; his greyness is written in, or, better yet, telegraphed. Yes, you can figure it all out a third of the way into it. But still, it's fun. For one, there's the ship, which has the coolest way of 'bending' space since Dune, probably. Too, there's all the Black Hole stuff going on, how the Nightengale gets trapped in the gravity well of a blue giant, only has so long, etc. And finally, there's the artifact, which turns out to work much like the sphere in Sphere, and is just as important to existence as the fifth element was in Fifth Element.
However. As important as the artifact is made out to be, still, when it's all said and done and the people who make it out alive have made it out alive, the universe doesn't really feel saved, mostly because it never really felt threatened in the first place. Supernova would likely have been better off keeping the danger local, only putting the crew in jeopardy. Granted, it makes for a great trailer, but it results in some disappointment in the theater. Too, it all happens so fast. Not that 90 minutes isn't an appropriate time for a cerebral action-thriller heavily dependent upon effects, but it doesn't feel quite long enough for Supernova. Or, rather, Supernova feels rushed, makes you suspect a lot was left on the editing room floor, though that likely wasn't the case. In all likelihood, even, the fact of the matter is that a lot of it was likely left in the pen, when Supernova was being written, which is too bad for Spader. He's great as usual, but when it comes right down to the final scene, it's not Vanzant's Jerry-like cleverness which saves the day, but brute strength. It was a disappointment in Resurrection, and it's a disappointment here. On the upbeat, though, Supernova does, in the closing frames, introduce some fluidless sex that Cronenberg would have been proud of. Perhaps that's why Spader signed on. It wasn't for the story, anyway.
(c)2000 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com
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