Cosmic Sin (2021)
First and last contact
Guess what’s short and has a horrible critic rating? Tonight’s movie! Yay, lets get some fart-fests in this bean-filled world of movies! I mean, I’ve been watching some pretty good to mediocre movies for a while, so it almost feels like I’ve been avoiding them instead of getting lucky, so maybe we can fix that. Now, don’t get me wrong - it can be bad as long as it’s enjoyable and I’ll be fine with it - but when you’ve got a failing by school grade rating from the common folk and a less than four percent critical rating, I expect I might hit issues. Either way, strap in and see how bad it is, tonight is Cosmic Sin.
Hit number one - it’s science fiction. Look, I love sci fi movies, but for some reason they always seem to be poorly received by wide audiences (heck, even the Star Wars movies got hit by a lot of complaints constantly after the first three and those were like the gold standard for most people). The thing about science fiction is it offers me a few different things - outer space, futuristic places and technology, alien species and planets, and all matter of other possibilities because heck, it is make believe in the future anyways. Some of that stuff we get here - we get aliens, we get futuristic (kind of) places and technology, and there’s some outer space. What you don’t get is the feeling that this is some kind of big epic universe with a sprawling backstory of more than just “people be people, war be war.”
That’s probably hit number two - the story is just kind of there. Now, I’ll be fair and point out that at various times it does feel like it tries to do things - such as make you care about a character or something- but I can’t elaborate enough how little it feels like it does anything to earn anything with all those points. The story proper is that a couple of miners out for a some “happy fun times’ in a tent on an empty planet happen first contact with an alien species - and it’s pretty negative for both sides really. “Survivors” of the attack show up back on earth, some folks are gathered to assess the situation, and surprise - they aren’t survivors at all, they are aliens in disguise! After the situation is dealt with, the only reasonable course of action is to space-nuke (with a black hole bomb) the alien homeworld out of existence. Given this and the importance, the head military man brings a man familiar with space-nuking places, an engineer, and a few honestly disposable to the story folks including his own son with him to tackle the task.
It’s bare bones, but it works at least as far as the extent of giving a point to the movie. This isn’t handled the best at all times however, and you’ll often find yourself in a segment where it feels straight up like padding. Oh, look at this one character try and make himself endearing to the audience by talking with a little girl even though it does nothing to the plot. Look at every soldier trained or otherwise just stand up and walk out in the open whenever they are in a gun fight and (big surprise) get shot. Nobody will be seated for this walking scene. The parts that are important to the plot - most all talking head scenes - also tend to fail to be super enthralling (on account of being talking head scenes). It has things there, yes, but it feels like it could have used a few more years to bake to really be a thrilling space adventure about saving the human race - and that’s before we even touch on anything to do with the budget.
Where am I again?
Now, most will recognize Bruce. He’s Bruce! Mr Die Hard himself! Now, for those of you whose only ever seen his greatest hits, he has a tendency of feeling like he just shows up in whatever - kind of like that actor you forget about until you see him on screen and go “oh man, I remember that guy!” What I’m trying to say is that you don’t always get 100% A number 1 Bruce Willis acting in everything he appears in. This one here is a bit mixed - sometimes he feels like he might be trying, other times it feels like he’s kind of there for a paycheck. Now, I don’t blame this all on him, as the feeling sort of spreads across the entire cast - which in turn leads me to suss out that it might be less an actor issue (some of them do honestly feel like they are trying) and more of just a general writing and directing issue on play here. It’s more noticeable in some spots where the dialogue calls to attention how stupid it’s being - like when the head military guy over the phone tells someone to listen close, then proceeds to pause and not say anything for at least ten seconds before he actually continues saying anything. So the acting on display here isn’t the best - far better than most Asylum-grade films I’ve watched, but for a wide audience who doesn’t watch filth like me, I could easily see this being a third hit.
Despite all of this, there’s still one thing we can all have hope in - the effects. Well, it’s pretty budget feeling. Look, I love the armored up suits, all the neon and cultist looking bad guys, even the space ships are kind of cool. Having said all that, the armored suits look like a foam armored suit made by a decent cosplayer, and don’t really feel like they take into account functionality (like those little arms that I think were supposed to connect to the shoulder plates but on the one guys costume just floated off to the sides and kind of hung out in front of there. The neon places are cool - but it’s just a touched up bar and what looks like an electrical or utility building touched up to look like a giant space cannon that’s conveniently shaped to be quite laughable for anyone who notices what it looks like. The cultist looking aliens are rad - and then you realize that ends up looking like a militia fighting a bunch of ninjas being lead by a budget Warhammer 40K marine that really digs Cthulu. They still look awesome from a distance shot though, but it is a shame that so little was done with Machete McSquid face. What I’m saying here is that things don’t normally look bad - they are almost totally passable in all instances outside of maybe two where they really just drop quality through the floor - but they don’t end up looking incredible either.
Audio isn’t bad. I mean, I have no real props to give it - it does what audio does in a movie. There’s a neat harmonica song at the end, but there isn’t any song including that sticking around after the movie for me. Audio balance is totally suitable. Actor deliveries are largely fine, although the pacing of them can be a bit weird at times, and the occasional odd inflection might crop in. It’s probably the department that has the absolute least to complain about in it, so I don’t feel like anybody watching this thing is going to be leaving a nasty review about how horrible it sounded - but maybe some audiophile out there has a different opinion about how it sounds on a nicer setup than mine.
Zoidberg if owned by Games Worshop.
Alright, look, it’s not horrible but I wouldn’t exactly say go out and watch it. I feel the best parts of this thing can largely be gathered from just screenshots - the prop suits and one alien suit in particular. Everything else could be argued to be a bit budget, but in most instances I think the worst I’d call it is aggressively mediocre. Like, it doesn’t feel like it was someones passion project that they poured their heart into, but it’s still better than most Uwe Boll films and at least a portion of Asylum movies - although it still feels like it’d be at home as a SyFy original.