Plot
In the year 2050, a violent solar flare threatens to destroy the Earth. To avoid catastrophe, a group of valiant astronauts on board the spaceship “Helios” is tasked with the delicate mission of detonating a sentient, self-aware antimatter bomb named “Freddy” (!) inside the sun in order to direct the impending “megalo flare” away from the earth, thus saving humanity.
As if the sun’s immense distance, intense heat, and gravitational pull weren’t barriers enough, it turns out there’s a saboteur on board the spaceship. In fact, the CEO of a powerful corporation, having his own – incomprehensible – reasons to scuttle the mission, managed to sneak a stowaway aboard with a hi-tech device he uses to “brainwash” a key “Helios” crewmember who then commits a string of covert actions that endanger the mission’s success.
Will the “Helios” crew manage to surmount all these obstacles, or is humanity doomed?
For over a thousand days the sun's enormous power has ravaged the Earth's atmosphere.
Critique
4.5Hiding (in shame?) behind the pseudonym “Alan Smithee”, the versatile Richard C. Sarafian directs a convoluted space opera (inspired by Takeshi Kawata’s novel of the same name), in which elements from the most disparate genres of sci-fi are forced to cohabitate: hi-tech brainwashing, an artificial intelligence with manic-depressive tendencies, post-apocalyptic Bedouins…
A persistent pall of narrative confusion lords over it all. Blame it on a faltering screenplay that superficially addresses an excessive burden of themes while mostly denying the viewer any reasonable explanation for what’s going on (for example, the abstruse motives leading the head of a multinational corporation to sink a mission that would save mankind). Compounding the pain, somnolent pacing, particularly egregious in the first half of the story, gives rise to the inevitable “soporific” consequences.
Cast chock-full of out-of-shape stars who’ve seen better days.
More Info
- Based on the novel "Crisis 2050" (1990) by Takeshi Kawata
Quotes
- For over a thousand days the sun's enormous power has ravaged the Earth's atmosphere.
- The cremation of the planet is at hand.
Products
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| Product name | Price | |
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 | Solar Crisis (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) |
| Nome del prodotto | Prezzo | |
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 | Solar Crisis |
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| Solar Crisis [DVD] [1992] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] |
| Nombre del producto | Precio | |
|---|---|---|
| Solar Crisis [USA] [DVD] |
| Produktname | Preis | |
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| Solar Crisis |
| Nom du produit | Prix |
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| Product name | Price | |
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| Solar Crisis |