THE STORY: I used to hate James Spader. I don't know why....I just didn't like him and I couldn't articulate a reason. The same way my wife hates Mario Van Peebles but can't actually say why....she just does. That's how I felt about Mr. Spader. But I have changed my mind. He's okay with me. I'm betting he's probably a fairly nice guy. That doesn't mean this movie is anything to write home about, but I began to like him a little while watching it.

In the far future the Search and Rescue ship Nightingale is tooling about in deep space. The crew has little to do obviously since the first third of the movie shows them having sex and talking. (Well, it may not have been a full third but it damn sure felt like it) The Nightingale's crew is hailed from an abandoned mining planet for help and in order to get there in time they have to use the Dimension Jump engines.

This is both interesting and silly at the same time. The D-Jump is obviously stupid=dangerous. It [unwrite]s people up real bad when it goes wrong. So you know at least one person is going to be [unwrite]ed up after the jump just to show how [unwrite]ed up it can be. It won't take to long to figure out who it will be either. Will it be the doctor with a past she doesn't want to share (Angela Bassett) or will it be the first officer, Nick Van Zant (James Spader) Maybe it'll be the medical staff (Robin Tunney and Lou Diamond Phillips) or Ben (I didn't write down the actors name and really who cares?) Or will it be the captain, William Forster who serves no other purpose other than to be the captain? Oh, come the [unwrite] on. We know its going to be the captain because Bassett and Spader are on the friggin' box for this movie! Tunney and Phillips are too highly paid b-movie actors to be wasted in such a way and Ben has demonstrated a talent with computers that you know will somehow make him vital to the story later on...so the only person left to get smoked is the Captain, who only appears to be "a captain.". (actually, Tunney has to survive only so we can catch glimpses of her boobs.)

As expected the jump goes wrong and the captain is horribly disfigured by a malfunction in his jump chamber bed thing...in order to survive the jump, people must stay in these little sealed bio-bed things or suffer incredible damage. As it turns out, the distress call was sent by an ex-lover of Dr. Evers (Bassett) on an abandoned mining moon. Evers doesn't want to talk about her relationship with Larson, the man behind the call. Apparently he was a dick. She left him because of an ill-informed drug called Haze or something. But the man they rescue is not Larson. He claims to be Larson's son, Troy.

Well, Nick is in charge due to the captains demise and he orders the crew to keep an eye on Troy and to quarantine an alien object that Troy has found on the planet. The ship is in trouble. After the jump the ship emerged in orbit of the rogue moon and was battered by meteors. The moon itself is caught in the gravitational pull of a blue giant star. I don't know a lot about astronomy and I'm betting the scriptwriter didn't either. But basically the ship will fall into the planet in a little over 17 hours. And the computer tells Nick the engines need 17 or so hours to recharge. basically, they have only 11 minutes of "[unwrite] up time" to blast out of there or be killed.

For some incomprehensible reason, Troy is given free run of the ship. This is after he brings an alien artifact on board without informing the crew (Yersey, {Lou diamond Phillips} finds it on Troy's shuttle.) he's lied about his identity and admitted to being a scavenger of some kind. Yet the crew kind of lets him do his thing. Why? Its stupid just in a security kind of way, but we all know he's got to be the bad guy.

Troy is actually Larson. The artifact somehow has infected him and made him younger and stronger. Evers doesn't recognize him so I imagine it made him look a little different. Troy claims to be Larson's son, and I guess the crew and Evers falls for it. Only after Troy takes advantage of their stupidity (by trapping Nick on the planet surface and having sex with Robin Tunney) does he reveal his true colors.

The Artifact is some kind of ninth dimensional bomb that will destroy the universe or something if it goes off. Its not clearly explained but whatever aliens created it have control of Troy and he serves as a Jason-like killer to get rid of the crew. He does quite well. He basically kills everyone except the two you know will live...Nick and Dr. Evers.  Nick manages to get an emergency shuttle back to the Nightingale. Then he hooks up with Dr. Evers and together they figure a way to blow Troy and the artifact into space and into the blue giant star.

Are you at all suprised by this? You shouldn't be. The entire time I knew Nick was going to make it and that they'd succeed. That's not a breath of  revelation...after all, the heroes have to win...but I wish the movie had dared to be different. If the magic "emergency shuttle" ploy wasn't used we'd have all felt bad for Nick who would have been doomed to die on a godforsaken rock....if Ben had managed to be the hero it would have been different...Ben wasn't a big guy so the movie would have had to use him as a savvy smart guy character and he'd have used wits to defeat Troy instead brawn and explosives. That would have been a good movie!

Also Robin Tunney 's character was obviously only here to show us some gratuitous nude scenes. Bassett's character is also seen nude and having sex, but I'm willing to believe it was a body double since we don't see any naked boobies and Bassett's head in the same shot.

I'll admit, I got caught up in the story...because it did have some ideas that would have been interesting in a better movie. But when the end came I felt like I had wasted an hour and a half. Because dammitt, I want a sci-fi movie to be smart, witty and intelligent. The old "He's the bad guy and we have to kill him and destroy his doomsday device" isn't cool unless you have really [unwrite]ing good characters and a damn good story. Plus the guy playing Troy was trying so hard to be Tom Cruise it was making me gag.

Best Lines: "Whoever they are, they're as smart as God and not as nice."- Dr. Evers speculates on the creators of the artifact.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) Who designed the Nightingale?  It seems badly laid out for a rescue ship. First the crew  has to travel a distance to reach the bridge...and apparently no one stays on duty there unless they have to move the ship to somewhere. Then in order to travel light years they have to 'dimension jump' (a fancy name for warp or hyperspace or whatever you want to call it) so the crew have to run to a special room and get in some kind of fancy chambers in order to do it safely before the countdown finishes...and get naked too(!)....that's kinda dumb. I mean, wouldn't it be smarter to have these chambers on the bridge? Maybe not, but its definitely stupid to have a ship laid out in such a way that the crew has to run all over the place to perform vital functions.

2.) You know, I really hate it when people who should know better do really [unwrite]ing stupid things. When Yersey finds the artifact on Troy's ship he puts his hand in it. This thing is glowing and pulsating and looks just plain weird, yet this man who is a "trained medical technician" just starts dinking with it? The worst part is as the audience we know it can't be anything good. You know if I found a weirdass glowing pulsing thing in a junkyard the LAST thing I'd do is start touching it.

3.) Speaking of people that do really dumb things, how can the crew not know that this Troy guy is somehow dangerous? He's practically oozing with bad vibes. He might as well have a sign on his head that reads "I'm THE BAD GUY!". Plus, he's admitted that he lied about his identity, and that he's some kind of space pirate. Nick must be a retard. He should have had this nut locked up the second he was medically cleared.

NUDITY AND SEX:  Several boobs and sex scenes are in this move. Still they ain't too explicit. Robin Tunney is a babe though.

HUH?:  I don't like it when the bad guys win, but trust me, I'm leaning towards the "These morons deserve everything they get" in this movie. Troy gains control of the Nightingale's computer and uses it to control machinery on the rogue moon and kill Nick. Then he takes remote control of Nick's shuttle and strands Nick on the moon. Yeah, this guy that they should never have trusted for more than 5 seconds is left to freely walk about the ship and wreak havoc. Even though Nick said in no uncertain terms before he left to watch him at all times. I guess this movie takes place in what I've heard is called an "Idiot World." You know, a place where everyone's actions are so stupid that you know if you were part of this universe you could seize control within mere minutes.

There are scene of the crewmembers making love in a zero gravity observation dome. This dome is only separated from space by a glass like shield. You know, it would be kind of cool to do that...think about how romantic that would be...but its also ridiculous. Even at my horniest I can't see it. There's nothing separating me from the ultimate vacuum but a sheet of glass? and this dome serves no other purpose! Are you telling me that whatever agency they work for sanctioned starships to have a zero-g, atmosphere filled [unwrite] dome? Its insane. One micro meteor and your love session would end! A nice soft bed does the same thing for screwing purposes, thank you very much. Hell, I'd rather take my chances on the kitchen floor than trust my life...and my sacred ding dong...to space.

THE FINAL JUDGEMENT: If you feel hard up for a sci fi movie, this flick is okay. Only if you just happen to be really drunk or stupid will you not see the things that will happen...don't blame The Inferno...you'd see them anyway. Unfortunately the rest of the movie is kind of boring.