Review of Spacejacked

Spacejacked (1997 TV Movie)
10/10
I Own This Thing
8 April 2004
That's not an easy thing to admit. I found SPACEJACKED on sale in the bargain-bin at a Hollywood video in Las Vegas. Once I saw Corman's name I just had to have it. I'm a sucker for Corman's B-movie productions. I also found and bought another Corman-produced movie at the same store, STAR QUEST 2. SPACEJACKED proved to be the better of the two. Knowing who made this and how little I paid for it, I was ready to take the film with quite a few grains of salt.

On a space-cruise-ship in the future (where else), rich people live it up and are served by androids. They have virtual-reality sex and behave badly. Then, the unexpected happens, the ship is sabotaged by one of the crew and the rich passengers are held hostage. Corbin Bernsen is our villain and Amanda Pays is our hero. Bernsen sits in the control room and makes threats over the com-screen while his android does his dirty work. Pays puts on a spacesuit and crawls around. The situation plays out from there as you'd imagine it would, if your imagination was limited to a budget lower than the price of your house. It's like a cheap DIE HARD in space. If you can accept that, then you can enjoy SPACEJACKED, on a certain level. The ending, however, is weak even for this kind of film.

The production design to the film is good (though obviously limited by the budget). They did a good job creating the wrecked spaceship. The script is tenth rate stuff. The director, composer, and cinematographer may have a future with Corman, but I doubt they'll graduate to real film anytime soon. The acting is not the selling point here, so just try to ignore it.

This isn't a movie you need to see. SPACEJACKED is low-key fun for the morbidly curious. For those looking for a good action movie, there's always the original DIE HARD and anything John Woo made in Hong Kong. If you want a cheapo sci-fi-action film that entertains rather than inspires pity, try my old favorite AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK. You don't really have to avoid SPACEJACKED, just don't expect anything, and whatever you do, don't be fooled by the packaging (lame as it is).
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