Alien Cargo (1999)
After eight months of hyper-sleep, when Christopher 'Chris' McNiel (Jason London) and Theta Kaplan (Missy Crider) of a Mars cargo transport ship the Solar System Shipping Vessel No.17 (Triple S-17) awaken, they find out something has gone terribly wrong. They've woken up from hyper-sleep almost ten months past their scheduled time, find the ship's internals badly damaged, off course and almost no fuel. What's more, it's discovered the first shift killed each other. As the plot unfolds, something truly evil is discovered on board - an alien biological life form which can psychologically manipulate humans.
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Good start, but then it gets ruined
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Blistering performances.
Starring the less drug addled of the London twins and Australian acting legend Alan Dale this little sci-fi movie is better than you'd likely assume.It tells the overused concept of folks in "Hyper sleep" during a long journey through space. Two of them awaken only to learn that they should have woken up many months earlier, the crew are eerily missing and for some reason their tempers seem to be flaring.Truth be told I'm sure I've seen this before, maybe an old Outer Limits episode or something similiar. The concept is bareable and competently enough handled but I couldn't get past the nagging feeling that it was more than slightly recycled.Building to a less than predictible finale this impressed me, and that's hard to do considering I'm really not a sci-fi guy.It still does rate just about an average film overall, but I appreciate the effort and it's certainly better than you'd expect it to be.The Good:Quite well madeThe Bad:Feels recycledThings I Learnt From This Movie:USA turns out to be responsible for every major movie conspiracy
This movie was a refreshing scent into the Sci-fi genre. I really enjoyed this movie. The way the characters interact with each other, and now they would always have a good time even in a bad situation. This was awesome photography and the direction by Mark Haber was excellent. The music used in the whole shipping grounds was a nice touch to give it that space-like feeling. I would definitely welcome a DVD release if this gets a DVD release. My favorite actress Missy Crider stars in here as Theta Kaplan a beautiful, gorgeous blond who is ultimately and secretly dating Christopher McNeil even though it's against SSS17 rules and policies. But they don't care about rules and policies all they care about is getting the job done so they can go home and have a relaxing time. I love this movie. Put it on DVD now.
It's a lazy Saturday and I'm at home, not expecting to find anything worth watching on the tube when I stumbled upon this movie. I have to say that I was very surprised by this film. It's really pretty good. The problem with a lot of sci-fi pictures today is that they fail to create a believable fantasy world. Bad sci-fi flicks suffer from gaping plot holes or scientific impossibilities that anyone who paid attention to 4th grade science could figure out. This film doesn't suffer from such ailments. The writer and director painted a believable picture of a future where humans live on Earth, Mars, and mine the moons of Saturn and interplanetary shipping of cargo is a high pay / high risk job. The two lead characters awake from hyper-sleep 10 months past their scheduled date only to discover that the ship has been ravaged by the two members of the previous shift... both of whom are missing. The suspense starts from there continues to build for remainder of the film. It was pretty suspenseful flick. A lot of that is due to excellent acting jobs by Missy Crider (Frailty, Powder, the TV series The Others) and Jason London (The Rage: Carrie 2, Safe Passage) and a script by Carla Jean Wagner that didn't sacrifice accuracy for an abundant amount of official sounding techno-babble. Put the acting and writing together and you actually end up caring about the lead characters. If this movie a larger budget for props and special effects, it could have ranked up there with films like Alien, or Blade Runner. The ending isn't typical, which only adds to the class of this film. The only problem I can see with the flick are the external CGI shots of the ships... they are good for television, but still obviously generated by computer. Regardless, I still recommend this film. Enjoy!
Alien Cargo was a great movie. I saw it on Sci-Fi channel and it kept me going with it the entire time. The one thing that bothered me was that the ending was very unexpected and it desperately needs a sequel to continue it.