New To Blu: Stranded

Oh, Christian Slater, what happened? Did you lose a bet?

It’s hard to fathom how such a promising career has come to this, the guy starred in some of the best movies of the late 80s and 90s. Movies like Heathers, Pump Up The Volume, True Romance and Very Bad Things just to name a few.

And now Christian Slater has been reduced to starring in Stranded, a low budget sci-fi thriller about four crew members on a lunar mining station that is turned upside down by an unexpected meteor shower that leaves the station in shambles.

The movie gets to work right away at plundering aspects of pretty much every decent outer space thriller from Alien to Event Horizon to Prometheus without shame. I could actually live with this if it had been done well, but it’s not. Instead of character development and narrative we get a whole lot of cheesy jargon about hatch doors and carbon dioxide levels delivered with all the enthusiasm of a dead fish.

Director Roger Christian appears to be living proof that you can be highly successful in other aspects of movie making but crash and burn when helming the big chair. This is the guy that subjected the world Battlefield Earth but he has also won an Academy Award for set decoration on Star Wars and was nominated for another for art direction on Alien. That’s some pretty impressive resume material. Sadly he didn’t learn enough from the likes of George Lucas and Ridley Scott to make Stranded a movie worth remembering.

Sci-Fi B flicks can be a lot of fun, maybe with a group of friends on a slow night Stranded could be turned in to a good drinking game. HATCH DOOR! TAKE A SHOT!




-Review by Brian Rohe