Supernova (2000)
space adventure
directed by : Thomas Lee
featuring : James Spader - Angela Bassett - Robert Forster - Lou Diamond Phillips - Peter Facinelli
running time : 1 hour 30 minutes
In the early years of the 22nd century, a medical rescue team is traveling the netherworlds of deep space, waiting to answer emergency calls aboard what amounts to an interstellar ambulance. Captain Marley (Robert Forster), pilot Vanzant (James Spader), medical officer Evers (Angela Bassett), medical technician Penalosa (Lou Diamond Phillips), paramedic Lund (Robin Tunner), and computer technician Sotomejor (Wilson Cruz) pick up a distress signal from a group of workers involved in a mining operation on a comet. But as they move in for a rescue, they discover that this isn't the mission of mercy they were expecting. They pick up Larson (Peter Facinelli), a mysterious and menacing man with a strange alien artifact, who draws the ship into the orbit of a huge star that is due to explode into a supernova at any time. Supernova had a production history that can be charitably described as "troubled." Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright was replaced by Walter Hill shortly before filming began. Actor Vincent D'Onofrio left the project shortly after Wright, replaced by Cruz. Hill then left the project in post-production and requested that his name be removed from the film. Francis Ford Coppola was hired to supervise a final re-cut, nearly a year after the completion of photography.

A chaotic production history adds up to a mixed bag of science fiction cliches for this film destined to be remembered not for its positive qualities but as an early use of the phony directorial credit Thomas Lee, the replacement moniker for the DGA-imposed Alan Smithee. A cast of interesting actors struggling with arcane material can't rescue this dead-on-arrival concept, a mixture of ideas borrowed from other deep space adventures and sci-fi horror flicks. Unlike the superior predecessors it mimics, including Alien (1979), the film's antagonist motivations and thrills are never clearly delineated, leaving viewers befuddled. Exposition that never seems to end, camera work that pinwheels from impressive to confusing, and an utter lack of chemistry between the film's stars adds up to a frustrating cinematic experience that begins and ends abruptly. A last minute editing job by MGM honcho Ford Coppola couldn't save the film from a fate worse than death at the hands of an alien: box-office apathy.