This is a movie review for "Event Horizon", released August 15, 1997.
I know I am not caught up to my movie reviews but a friend of mine wanted me to watch this ASAP so I could watch something he was doing with the content of this movie. So I watched this January 16, 2024 and am writing the review now (ahead of all of the ones I haven't written yet over the last 3-4 years....). It doesn't mean you won't get those reviews, so don't worry!
Let's get at it!
Trailer
Genre
Space Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller
Cast
Laurence Fishburne - Miller
Sam Neill - Weir
Kathleen Quinlan - Peters
Joely Richardson - Starck
Richard T. Jones - Cooper
Jack Noseworthy - Justin
Jason Isaacs - D.J.
Sean Pertwee - Smith
Plot
Humans like to explore and expand as far as they can by any means possible. Exploring space is no different. Why not find a way to go faster than light? When humankind's first faster-than-light spaceship (the "Event Horizon") disappears out of radio range and comes back seven years later, humankind wonders what happened. Is the ship functional? Did the crew survive? Why haven't we gotten any feedback from the experiment? Did they actually travel to a place beyond our galaxy? Is travel-faster-than-light sustainable?
To answer all of the questions, Dr. Weir (creator of the faster-than-light hyperdrive) teams up with a search and rescue team [the crew of the "Lewis and Clark"] to go to the orbit of Neptune and to see what information they can get from the "Event Horizon".
Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.
4/5 - *SPOILERS*
This movie is not for the faint of heart.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie but there were things that bothered me significantly, which dropped the rating down from 5/5 to a 4/5. (It dropped from 4.5 to 4 as I wrote the review because of all that bothered me...)
Let's talk about the bad.
First off, we are never told much about Dr. Weir. He tells us that he created the hyperdrive of the Event Horizon but no science mumbo jumbo explaining how he did so or how he got the technology to do so. Pretty much said "I'm going with you because she's my baby". Generically speaking, if someone creates something, that person puts his/her intentions into it and it affects how something works. Like if you had good intent, it most likely will be well intended. But considering how the ship turns out, did Dr. Weir really have good intents?
You can argue that it is "just a ship" and intentions do not matter but we have seen many science fiction vehicles with sentience: the TARDIS from Doctor Who, Moira and Talon from Farscape, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the movie of the same name, etc. True, not all of these can talk or communicate or express themselves like humanoids can but they change to deal with situations, get themselves out of dangerous situations, etc. So was the Event Horizon sentient before the 7-year disappearance? They never gave us an indication about it but I doubt it, since there was no mention.
The reason I bring up the sentience of the ship is because of one point where Starck said that the ship was trying to get rid of them like parasites and when Miller said that he was going to blow the ship up, the ship routed power away to find a way to deter him from doing just that. Sentience? Possibly. From a hellscape? Unsure how these two work with each other.
Secondly, whatever was on the other side of the gateway was never explained. Justin got a look into it when he stupidly got pulled through the gateway. [He totally pulled a Dr. Daniel Jackson move from "Stargate" the movie by touching the event horizon of the gateway. Yes, Stargate called the surface of the gateway the "event horizon" so is that how the ship got its name in this (Event Horizon) movie?]
"Event Horizon" : Justin and the Core
"Stargate" : Dr Daniel Jackson goes through the Stargate for the first time
Anyways, we get small glimpses at what might be on the other side of the gateway but there is no definite answer. Something caused and is causing the humans on board to want to be violent, self mutilate (claw/pop their eyes out?!), rape, murder, etc. It has something to do with the other side of the gateway, supposedly, but there is no definite answer. Again, the question of the ship being sentient comes up regarding whether the ship is causing this chaos or if something from the other side is causing this? There is no answer. We just have to take it as is.
I personally find this hard to accept because I want to know the reason behind it. If everyone's acting like reavers from the sci-fi western show "Firefly" (kill, rape, skin, and eat and lucky if in that order), then just say something like the Firefly show says "they got out to the edge of the universe, saw the black nothingness, and went bibledy over it". I can accept the madness from the darkness, or actually going mad because there is nothing past Neptune except rock/space, but essentially saying "we broke the rules of science, bent space, went somewhere we shouldn't have gone (which was a bad place?), and lost our minds" just isn't enough for me. Show me the other side and not just in hints and glimpses!
Thirdly, Dr. Weir is a dick. Why didn't he give them a "here's the layout of the ship" explanation before they got to the blasted ship! Or did he want this to go badly? A simple "this is what the ship does, how it works, don't put your hand into the gateway" would have gone a long way.
Fourthly, who was this chick Dr. Weir was seeing? I think it was supposed to be his wife, but they never give a good clarification on her. She pops up randomly and for nearly no reason, except him seeing her committing suicide in the bathroom and her (though dead and maybe a hallucination?) saying "it's okay, you're with me now". He then gouges his eyes out. Like wtf is with you, dude?! ...serious plot issues if Dr. Weir was supposed to be a level-headed scientist. 🤦♀️ Again, if we had known more about him prior.....
There's not much more I can say about this movie. I personally am shocked that I had never watched this before now. I rank it high on the sci-fi scale, but still am disappointed by lack of some information. (At least Ripley told the soldiers in Aliens what they were going against, unlike Dr. Weir about this ship in this movie!)
It was interesting watching Dr. Grant from "Jurassic Park", Morpheus from "The Matrix", and Lucius Malfoy from "Harry Potter" work together in this movie. 😆
Do I recommend? Yes. It is definitely not for everyone, considering the gore, suicides, and brutality, but could be a decent watch for those brave enough.
That's my movie review! Thank you for reading. More reviews to come soon.
~ R
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