Starring: Lexa Doig, Kane Hodder, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, Peter Mensah, Melyssa Ade    Directed by: James Isaac    Written by: Victor Miller, Todd Farmer

The Story:

I'm not crazy enough to tell you this is the last Friday the 13th movie. One would think it is, but I doubt it. It might be years until you see another one rolling out of the studio, but someone will make another one.....somewhere, someone will see a profit to be made and Jason will return yet again. That's actually not good news. The series is famous for being....well, repetitive and just plain dumb. But honestly, that's part of its charm. Since the early 80's Jason Voorhees has been chopping up teenagers on the big screen and coming back from the dead. Someone out there is watching these movies so they kept on makin' 'em. I think I finally threw in the towel after the 2nd one. After all, they all essentially had the same plot. Teenagers (or young twenty something's) go to camp Crystal Lake. Jason, the hockey masked maniac shows up and kills them in over the top ways. Usually only one or two of the characters survive to the end seemingly having killed Jason...until the next movie.

Now I'm not a big fan of any movie franchise that is rooted in present day earth but suddenly has an installment "In Space". When the Leprechaun series went into "Leprechaun: In Space" I knew it had to suck. Hellraiser in Space seemed like a bad idea too. But I'll give you this....Jason X....essentially Friday the 13th...IN SPACE! was entertaining. Its not a good movie in the sense of...well, being a good movie...but its a fun movie if you know what you're getting into. Part of the reason for that is you can see that the actors know this is a silly Friday the 13th movie and are having fun. Lisa Ryder, especially. She looks like she can hardly contain herself from laughing her ass off in most scenes. As the android Kay-Em , Ryder seems to be having the time of her life and it made scenes with her in them a hoot to watch.

In the not too distant future, Jason Voorhees has finally been captured by the authorities. They've tried to execute him, but since Jason has a Captain Scarlet-like ability to survive death, he won't stay dead. Or even GET dead, it seems. Dr. Rowan (Lexa Doig) is there to supervise or something....but the game plan is this....since they can't execute Jason, they're going to freeze him into suspended animation and keep him like that until they can figure out a way to get rid of him for good. But as the best laid plans go, Jason escapes his chains. (Don't ask me how, he just does....and in a way that makes it look like he could have escaped anytime he wanted to) Jason pretty much kills everyone in the complex he's being held in except Rowan who manages to freeze him, though she too, becomes frozen.

450 years later, an archeological class from Earth 2 finds the frozen pair. Yeah, I said Earth 2. Some disaster has happened and the REAL earth is now a wasteland incapable of supporting life. That's about the only explanation you'll get for Earth being in poor condition. You'll just have to deal with it. Back aboard their spaceship, (The Grendel....at least the script writers read Beowulf) Prof Lowe and his students use nanotechnology to unfreeze Rowan and prepare to do an autopsy on Jason. Jason though, awakens and begins killing people immediately, which is, after all, what anyone watching this wanted to see in the first place. Luckily, the ship of students also has a squad of space marines on board. Well, they ain't really lucky....the marines don't really make a difference to Jason. He wipes them out just like he does anyone else. They 're only there to provide Jason with more targets. The only soldier to survive the onslaught is SGT Brodski, the marine commander, and he's gravely wounded. The only thing the surviving students can do is reprogram the android, Kay-Em, turning her into a leather clad Dominatrix with big guns. This is the part I was talking about earlier....Lisa Ryder who plays Kay-Em is clearly having more fun than anyone else in the cast. Its an interesting side note to realize that Ryder and Doig  both have characters on Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda where Doig plays an android, and Ryder is a human.

Anyway, Kay-Em actually kicks Jason's ass, effectively killing him by blasting his head off with a giant ass rifle. Even though the ship is damaged and the survivors now have to implement a plan to keep it space worthy long enough for a rescue to reach them, at least Jason is out of the way...or is he? Come on, droogies, you know Jason ain't going out that easy. The nanotechnology  that the crew uses to perform complex surgery  malfunctions and the nanobots get free somehow and without any intervention or commands from the humans, rebuild Jason and he once again comes back to life. But this time he's Jason 2.0! A cyborg! Now that he's definitely unstoppably Jason resumes his murder spree. Rowan and the others must now try to stay alive long enough for a rescue ship to get them the hell away from the masked killer.

It should be no surprise to anyone that only a handful of people (actually only two) live to see the end credits and that Jason is dispatched in a way that can lead to a sequel. I doubt there'll be a sequel to this movie (at least I hope) but like Jason himself the Friday the 13th series won't stay dead. There's nothing new in this movie, really. Its the same plot that is in every Friday the 13th movie, the only difference is the setting. And its not really all that original either. Its the basic "Its the 25th century, look at the fabulous technology!" future. In the movie's defense though, it does set out to do what it was made to do. You don't rent or buy this flick (or any other Friday the 13th movie) thinking you're going to see something scary or see some great drama! These movies were made with the simplest of intentions...to show some young people being killed by Jason in bloody and/or ridiculous ways. No one's gonna get an Oscar out of appearing in this movie.

Jason X  isn't what anyone could a call a good movie, and you shouldn't think it is. But if you know what you're getting into (and if you don't you clearly haven't seen any of the Friday the 13th movies) it can be entertaining. The cast knows what they're in, and they have fun with it. There are a few fun minutes.....there's a part where Jason is distracted by a hologram of Camp Crystal Lake circa 1980...and since the people are holograms he can't kill them, but he tries...its at least a good laugh watching him slam a camper in a sleeping bag again and again into a tree in the vain attempt to murder them. If you have the right mind set, Jason X will at least provide a few chuckles.

Best Lines:  "We love Premarital Sex!” -A holographic camp counselor, in a funny scene.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Rowan says that they've tried everything from firing squads, electrocution to hanging and Jason won't stay dead. Why not just chop him up into pieces, grind the pieces into a pasty mush, seal 'em up in about 25 different containers and if that ain't enough have the jars they're sealed in dropped into an active volcano or shot into space?

2.) Our culture is truly stagnant. College students in the year 2455 are just as annoying, bland and sex crazed as college students now in the 21st century. In any other movie I'd be disappointed but in this one? Well, if the students aren't going to be stupid, sex crazed imbeciles what would be the point?

3.) And to think I get upset if a pot handle is facing outward on a stove! Advanced science labs on futuristic starships have liquid nitrogen in sinks right there in the open! I guess I've been way too safety conscious!

4.) When asked if she knows how to use a weapon, Rowan says "Its like riding a bike". One of the futuristic students then says "What's a bike?". Um, excuse me, aren't they archeology students studying old earth....in fact they came to the ruined Earth for Artifacts. And she doesn't know what a bike is? Even though the reputation of Jason Voorhees seems to be common knowledge? Huh? Think about it....why would anyone remember who Jason is 400 years in the future and not know what a bike is?

5.) Possible In-Joke: When one of the space marines supposedly kills Jason, SGT Brodski tells him over the radio "Don't take your eyes off of him, I'm, on the way.". Well, of course the knucklehead glances away from Jason and thus is killed in an instant later. My wonder is did Brodski know that if you take your eyes off  Jason for a moment he'll come back to life and kill you?

6.) Solaris is a turd of a space station. The Grendel just runs right through it and destroys it with minimal damage to the ship. I'd have thought that a space station would have been sturdier than that. Or at least have some way of protecting itself from an accident like that. Space pirates in this Universe must be da bomb. all they have to do is threaten to bump into a space station and destroy it!

7.) Rowan takes the fact that she has been frozen for 450 years pretty well. When told of her circumstance by Prof. Lowe, she just says "That's 450 years!" (the amount of time she was in cryogenic suspension) and then pretty much begins to fit in. I can only assume that she not only is very hard to shock, but that she had absolutely no friends, relatives, or loved ones in her life that she'll be missing! Only fry from Futurama took news like that so well!

Nudity and Sex: Sex is implied several times, but no real doing the deed is seen. (Lowe and a student have a kinky scene, but both are sufficiently covered) Boobs are of course seen, (its a Friday the 13th movie! Come on, what did ya expect?)

Huh?:

As soon as Rowan awakens from Cryogenic suspension she slaps the first person she sees standing over her, which is Prof. Lowe. If I woke up after being stabbed, and expecting to die but was actually saved from the cold chill of death, I don't think I'd slap the first face I saw. Its either gonna be a doctor, paramedic, God or....well, you know who. But I'm pretty sure it'd be someone I wouldn't wanna piss off.

So, in the future all women will love to wear very revealing tops. Dude, sign me up for suspended animation!

The nanotech healing machine seems to be a little too easy to use. no one is there to operate it and the nanobots still repair and revive Jason. As a matter of fact, they make him more dangerous than before!  Talk about runaway technology!

When Jason first becomes a threat I noticed how this futuristic starship has no internal intercom system. If it did, Brodski or Lowe could have just said over the speakers "Everyone report to the lab. This is an emergency. Please check in over the comm right now to acknowledge receiving this message." instead of finding people have been slaughtered willy-nilly when they have to go search for them.

Going back to the comment I made in number #1 above: Kay-Em kills Jason when she practically blows his head clean off. It sure doesn't look like he would recover from that if not for the nanobots thing. So I guess in the past rowan never tried to simply chop his freakin' head off!

The spaceship doesn't have any life boats? What a dumb future! Once the shuttle is destroyed the survivors are forced to improvise a way to stay alive. You'd think that a society that has mastered interstellar travel, nanotechnology and android making would be smart enough to build some friggin' life pods or something!

It only took a few minutes to reprogram Kay-Em into an effective war-bot. Why have the human soldoiers on board? why not just have a few super androids like Kay-Em? she made short work of Jason before he was enhanced and she clearly wasn't afraid of him in either form!

The Final Judgment: If you find Friday the 13th offensive, stupid or not worth watching in any of its forms, then you're not going to like this movie. But its a fun enough movie if you don't take it seriously. The infernal Demons give it 3 Halloween punkinheads but be warned....its not a good movie, its just a good addition to an otherwise tired, and ridiculous series. Turn off your thought processes and you might enjoy it.