Subject: Retrospective: Event Horizon (1997)

From: Dragan Antulov <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:40:15 -0000

EVENT HORIZON (1997)

A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003

Lack of original ideas seems to be the greatest problem of modern
Hollywood. But original ideas alone can't save some Hollywood
films - when Hollywood have one of those ideas, its filmmakers
often leave impression that they don't know what to do with it.
EVENT HORIZON, 1997 science fiction horror directed by Paul W.S.
Anderson is one of those films that can perfectly illustrate my point.

The plot is set in year 2047. Seven years ago "Event Horizon",
experimental space ship equipped with revolutionary inter-stellar
drive, has mysteriously disappeared beyond the orbit of Neptune.
After distress call is received, it turns out that "Event Horizon" has
mysteriously reappeared. "Lewis & Clarke", search and rescue ship, is
sent to investigate and pick up eventual survivors, and its crew, led
by Captain Miller (played by Laurence Fishburne) reluctantly takes
Dr. Weir (played by Sam Neill), doomed ship's  original designer, on
ship. When Miller's men finally get on board "Event Horizon", it
turns out that they don't have anyone to rescue  - the crew of "Event
Horizon" is little pieces. It also appear that "Event Horizon" has
picked up someone or something on its last voyage, because Miller's
crew begins suffering from nasty hallucinations and quick return
home becomes increasingly attractive option.

EVENT HORIZON had intriguing concept based on "hard" science
fiction (the title is borrowed from astrophysics terminology). It also
had very talented cast and not insignificant amounts of money were
spent on special effects, costumes and production design.
Unfortunately, just like in many similar occasions, word "science
fiction" was in the end nothing more than a cheap excuse for
uninspired and predictable horror where "cool" special and make-up
effects are supposed to be more attractive or interesting than plot,
characters and scientific issues. With characters we don't particularly
care for (and whose final fate could easily be predicted), with all
plausibility and "science" being thrown out of window and with sad
realisation that vast number of talents and creative resources have
been tragically wasted, it isn't hard to understand why EVENT
HORIZON ended up in a black hole of oblivion.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

Review written on November 20th 2003

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society

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X-RT-RatingText: 2/10