Debug [DVD]

Needs more Momoa,

This film is so filled with cliches, I'm fairly certain it's some college kid's first script that just got a minor facelift by Hewlett.Every human female character is a caricature, a stereotype that they hold on to for the entirety of the film. The dialogue is stilted and delivered with odd timing.And for some reason, Hewlett thought it was important that 3 of the 4 female humans should be shown in their underwear and the last in a skintight bodysuit.The lead character isn't the lead, because she happens to be a woman, so we follow a hollowed-out character with no emotion or defining features that happen to have the "correct" genitals.It's about "hacking", but only in the Hollywood sense, where there's no actual code involved and it's just people talking to computers. And sometimes they are "in" the computer, and it's just displayed as them being elsewhere, doing the same thing they did outside the computer (which is just standing there, doing nothing). Since the setting is a space ship, this gimmick falls flat. They are already in a sci-fi setting, using some AR interface. Transporting them into the computer adds nothing more than a clothes change.The opening kill is completely different from all the other kills, done in a way that goes against the rules established later in the film. Like Hewlett just hoped we would forget the only memorable kill in the film. From there on it's just characters dying in quick succession, in ways that didn't need the "evil AI" at all.And, of course, we top it off with the black character being the first victim because we have to have all the cliches.

Oh dear. Just... oh dear. I like science fiction and I always enjoy seeing a good ‘spaceship’ type set. Just about the only two big budget ‘spaceship set-type’ movies of recent years were the Star Trek reboots and Prometheus. Therefore, I always try to give a space movie a chance. I shouldn’t have bothered here. If you see this film out on DVD in the shops, you may notice its quite flashy box. Don’t be deceived. The cover art is about the most expensive part of this whole film.Basically, it’s cheap. That’s really all you need to know. During the opening scene, you’ll get a sort of establishing shot of the outside of a giant spaceship. Only it looks like it was designed on a ZX Spectrum. I probably should have turned the film off there and saved myself an hour and a half. What follows is six kids (okay, teens – but they acted like kids in my opinion) trying to get rid of an (evil) artificial intelligence from the spaceship’s computer. The kids wear cheap orange uniforms and I wonder which genius actually entrusted them to this critical mission? Surely the crew of the Red Dwarf would be more organised than this crowd? The spaceship is nothing new – white clean-looking corridors and... well, that’s about it. Nothing new and certainly nothing expensive.You won’t give a damn about a single character. They’re all equally bland. I guess I should be grateful they’re not that annoying. Anyway, in this cheap 2001: A Space Odyssey set, you get a vague Event Horizon plot where the kids have to face their fears (or something – I was kind of tuning out by this stage). But, whereas Event Horizon had a cool Gothic feel for its decent, well-known actors to get lost in, this one is just cheap white corridors for its unknown cast to find – apparently – scary stuff in.Yes, it’s fair to say that I didn’t like it. Granted I didn’t really hate it, it’s just there’s nothing new here and nothing I have seen, only much better. If you like your ‘spaceship movies’ (like I do), just watch anything from Star Trek to Event Horizon (or Pandorum – I liked that, but no one else seemed to). Just forget this and ignore the enticing cover art on its DVD box.Okay, it had one positive: the ‘HUDs’ (heads up displays) were kind of neat and I’d never seen that special effect before. But that alone wasn’t worth an hour and a half of my time.

This is a stylish and quite smart slice of low-budget sci-fi. It pays inevitable homage to Ridley Scott’s spaceship, dips its toe in the Matrix mythology, even tips it hats towards Misfits. A bunch of convicted cyber criminals are serving community sentences in the far future, debugging and rebooting dodgy systems in space. They arrive at their latest assignment, split up, and kinda wait to be picked off by the seriously baddass AI. So far, so haunted house in space. And indeed, Debug doesn’t do anything new with this situation, but it introduces a few memorable moments and a couple of intriguing characters – not least the AI itself. And the spaceship is pretty nifty.Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the film is the notion of the flatline scan; that as you die the AI captures your consciousness. In essence, it digitises its victims' souls and draws them into its domain for an eternity of torment. That notion, as much as the physical end of the hapless characters, ramped up the tension. On the downside, this is obviously a low-budget flick and some of the repetitive running-thru-corridors moments wear thin. Similarly, the virtual fight scenes could've been more credible.It’s hardly Alien – or even Prometheus – but this is better than average indie sci-fi and features some genuinely creative moments.7/10

Felt like a cross between The Black Hole and 2001. Wasn't too bad, but really could have done with more suspense from nearer the beginning. The sets were great, however, please put some more effort in the difference between the different decks/corridors and control rooms!!! Even sticking the numbers in the same place would have helped! I know the budget is finite and modular spaceships would have similar sections, but really!And get a good spacecraft designer. Excepting Serenity, I've not seen a good design in the last thirty years!!!!! And ahem. I've done two. So employ fans. Der!