Release Date: January 4, 2002
Starring: Gary Sinise, Madeline Stowe, Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Mekhi Phifer
Directed by: Gary Fleder
Written by: Caroline Case, Ehren Kruger, David Twohy
Distributed by: Dimension Films (Miramax Films)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (intense sci-fi violence, some sensuality, language)
If you want to assess the relative popularity of the various genres common in contemporary film, the easiest way is to take a trip to your local video store and look at the shelf space allotted to each. Science fiction films are often lumped in with fantasy and horror flicks in the smallest, most obscure corner of the store -- which goes to show both that the general public doesn't have a taste for sci-fi, and that Hollywood subsequently doesn't produce many of these films. Most, if any, have the borderline B-movie quality and first quarter release date similar to Gary Fleder's Impostor, so it may be a boon to moviegoers that such movies are few and far between.
The general rule of thumb with sci-fi movies is that, unless your movie belongs to an established franchise like Star Wars or Star Trek (or maybe even The Matrix or Harry Potter nowadays), flashy special effects just won't cut it. The most celebrated contemporary sci-fi films are low-key affairs, like 1998's Dark City or 2000's Pitch Black.
The rest, like Impostor, belong to the MTV school of cinematic production, where obscenely kinetic (read: nauseatingly careless) editing is the norm and storylines come second to explosive special effects. But these aren't the painstakingly created effects on par with films like Jurassic Park or The Lord of the Rings, which induce open-mouthed stares of awe from the audience; rather, they are of the quickie desktop computer variety, the kind that any 15-year-old with enough free time and animation software could easily cook up.
Which is a pity, because director Fleder pins his film to the hope that audiences will be wowed by his recreation of a post-apocalyptic future, and that in itself isn't so revolutionary -- movies like Kurt Russell's Soldier or the John Travolta starrer Battlefield Earth, both of them duds, did the same. After you've seen Blade Runner or Escape from New York or any other bleak futurist picture, well, you quickly become desensitized to the apparently unanimous conclusion in Hollywood that the Earth is doomed.
For this go-round, Fleder's film is set in the year 2079, a future in which the Earth is at war with the Centaurians, an alien race who is prevented from annihilating human cities by giant force-field domes. Within one of these cities, Dr. Spencer Olham (Gary Sinise) lives and works a stressful but content life -- he's in charge of project that will build a giant nuclear bomb to destroy the Centaurians. Before he can see it to fruition, though, he is arrested by Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio), an upper-level officer of the Earth Security Agency, on charges of treason -- Hathaway thinks that Olham is an alien spy with a nuclear bomb inside his rib cage, sent to destroy the humans' own weapon and ensure the Centaurians' supremacy.
In theory, this could be exciting stuff, but in execution, it comes across as ho-hum science fiction. Luckily, it all transpires in less than 100 minutes, although even at that pace there's really nothing to get excited about -- Sinise is clearly established by Fleder to be the good guy, without any suspense or question as to whether he might actually be an alien saboteur.
It's in this way that Impostor truly runs on fumes. The genealogy of the story can be traced back to the legendary 1950's author Philip K. Dick, who had his own characteristic take on the bleak future of Earth, but written at the height of McCarthyism, his themes of totalitarianism probably had more resonance.
Interestingly enough, David Twohy is among the film's several screenwriters, and it's disappointing that he couldn't do more with the story. Twohy is to credit for both Pitch Black and The Arrival, two low-key science fiction films of the last five years that had both enormous atmosphere and narratives that crackled with life. Impostor is limp and dead on arrival -- but such is probably to be expected from a film that spent almost eighteen months in the can but on the shelf.
Such hibernation can't account for the lifeless performances, though. Sinise, usually marginally talented, is mechanical and droll as Olham; D'Onofrio is sinister as Hathaway but doesn't have much to do with his character. Madeline Stowe, Mekhi Phifer, and Tony Shalhoub are also present, but their roles are merely excuses to put actors on the payroll.
After watching another sci-fi dud, it's easy to see why so few titles in the genre actually make it to theaters. These are the kinds of films that ought to make their debut on TNT or TBS; at least as a made-for-television movie, there might be some excuse for the utter lack of effort put into a project like this.
all contents © 2002 Craig Roush