Battlespace


Title: Battlespace
Rating: 0.5/5
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Starring: Eve Connelly, Blake Edgerton
Director: Neil Johnson

Let me waste as little time as possible explaining why nobody should bother watching this film. Yes, I knew it was a budget flick going in and so my expectations weren't exactly high, but this goes beyond simply being 'bad,' into that rarely seen sleeping pill level of atrocity. We spend most of our time learning about the narrators 'heroic' mother who flees in the middle of battle with a technician, lands on a desert planet (mostly desert, there's some rock and ice topped mountains nearby) brought about by the fact it has a ridiculous number of suns and moons. It's also smaller than earth but has perfect gravity – perhaps as a result of the “terraforming” that's mentioned a few times but never elaborated on – and given the mission of blowing something up with a space age super gun that needs new batteries.

Nothing is ever explained properly; the plot which seems inherently simplistic but lacking the most basic of narration (even though there is a narrator throughout). Never are we told why we our protagonist is on a backwater planet populated by robot like beings that I get the impression were once humans 'gone a bit wrong' other than to blow something up, which is apparently some sort of “anti-matter” weapon, which again is left horrifically vague. The point where her only friend suddenly becomes her enemy is another baffling moment which starts with her clubbing him over the head without provocation. This, however, is nothing compared to the sudden transition; the mothers death in space causing a transition to the daughter's stranded ship, her stasis sleep ended by a nearby vessel and a conversation of “where are we” “the end of TIME” before time too collapses and everybody dies. Apparently we only have about 1000 years before time will kill us all, never mind the millions of years preceding us.

Why she carries a gun that rarely works or the many little bits of technology we see; her bracelet that she needs to switch modes from 'run' to 'fight' making up for her apparent lack of basic human functions never get any mention. But then her status as being truly human is a little dubious as well, the fact she doesn't drink anything despite the never ending heat 'scorching off the top layers of skin' as they describe it, eat more than two aubergines in two days yet still runs around and fights, recharging by plugging into telephone towers and with references to 'prophets' and 'combat soldiers' and the like, with a level thrown in as if that might give it all some sort of meaning. Nobody speaks – except for the narrator – until this final conclusion, which doesn't really explain anything anyway. A good half an hour is spent watching a woman walk through sand. I'm struggling to think of a single positive about this film.[1] Unless you're an insomniac in need of a good nights sleep or a masochist willing to test your endurance, beware.



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