I am so puzzled by this movie. It had a really promising beginning, an interesting premise, and some fairly intelligent dialog in the pre-launch portion of the movie. A pretty somber, realistic "pall" falls over the space headquarters as wailing sirens accompany public address announcements about a sped-up launch countdown. A last minute crew switch puts some female astronaunts on board, (look out...major spoiler) in case the earth is suddenly destroyed by a recently discovered Chinese doomsday device. The goal of the crew change is to alter the purpose of the flight from one of exploration to one of...propagation...a Noah's ark, giving the human race a shot at surviving on another planet. Once the crew is on board, though, the movie switches gears completely, turning into a stupid 70s battle of the sexes, in a ridiculous set with garish lightning. The movie recovers some of its sanity for fifteen minutes or so when the crew's more admirable members show their willingness to sacrifice themselves to save the others, by leaving the craft in a spacewalk to fix a jammed device, seconds before the segment the two heroes were on was jettisoned. I started to have real hope the movie was going to redeem itself. But then, it's as though the makers of the movie just totally ran out of script, money, and inspiration, and the flick completely dies; just marking time with inane dialog and absolutely no developments for what seems like an eternity. It wraps up with a completely meaningless intervention by unseen "aliens" who send the humans off on some sort of journey across the universe. I have never, ever seen a movie deteriorate as badly as this one does. But I'll give it a 3, for the sake of the first segment, which, if the movie had continued as strongly, would have been made it a decent flick. As it is, it's a total, total disappointment.
Review of Doomsday Machine
