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Space thrillers have undeniably reached new levels in the past few years inspired by franchises such as The Martian, Gravity, Interstellar, and Ad Astra. For John Suits (Loitering With Intent, Extracted) the task of producing a low budget thriller movie around issues occurring in a space station required quite a bit of bravery. While 3022 (which critics were not permitted to view prior) is not quite at the same level as those films it certainly possesses enough nuance and ambiance to warrant a try from sci-fi enthusiasts. viewers further add.
Though the premise is interesting, the story actually unfolds a bit in the future in the year 2190 to be precise. Captain John Lane (Omar Epps, USA’s Shooter), his girlfriend Jackie (Kate Walsh, Private Practice), medical officer Richard (Angus Macfadyen, Braveheart), and younger astronaut Lisa (Miranda Cosgrove, iCarly) make up the small crew aboard Pangea, a fully equipped space station in service for over ten years.
Now, John suffers from violent sleepwalking, Jackie desperately awaits for anyone to check for her child, and the rest are trying to come to terms with the reality of space. Five years have elapsed since the trip began and it looks like everyone on-board is worse for the wear. Having set the treacly piano music on loop for the entire trip, it makes one clearly wonder if the plan was to depict the trip’s happy days with a montage instead.
One of the lighter moments showcases Lisa sighing with a chuckle, “everything was fine at the start, we even had Richard taking a shower.”
Their emotional instability poses a serious threat to the remainder of their mission, but before anything can be done, a sudden explosion shakes the ship. Richard’s head drops to the floor as he continues to gaze in front of him, leaving him briefly catatonic, while Lisa gets hit in the head and suffers a serious head injury. Most importantly, on the off chance that their guess is true, then in simpler terms the blast would imply Earth facing an extinction-level event that wipes out all of humanity leaving them stranded in space.
We won’t give too much away, but it is worth mentioning that director Suits builds the tension effectively, but perhaps not enough to let go of the hope that a small alien monster would violently erupt from within someone’s chest. The alien works best at capturing the charged emotional dynamics between its main characters, while the introduction of an additional three person crew rescued from another space station Enver Gjokaj, Haaz Sleiman, and Jorja Fox of CSI lends more predictable thriller dynamics, especially since all of them speak in foreign accents that instantly leads you to assume they are up to no good.
One of the biggest shortcomings of Binaco’s screenplay is the out of place flash forwards we see throughout the film. In one of these flash forwards, we see a disheveled, bearded John who might be the only survivor of the ship. These episodes are not only dull and annoying, but also serve to halt the action entirely.
Epps manages the stalwart hero thing well enough by now. Walsh’s performance is, as always, very effective and intense, and Cosgrove and Macfadyen even manage to inject some humor into their performances. Like the set design, the special effects, and physical parts of the production are convincing given the apparent budgetary constraints. However, the picture of astronouts towards the end of the film, smoking cigarettes nearly two hundred years in the future, is less believable. Surely, it does not look good for today’s anti-smoking campaigns.
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