On the cusp of fatherhood, a junior mechanic aboard an interstellar ark to New Earth must outwit a malevolent cosmic terror intent on using the spaceship as a weapon.
Once upon a time, Bruce Willis was the biggest star in Hollywood. From the “Die Hard” movies to “Pulp Fiction” and “The Sixth Sense,” he had his pick of projects and while he was never a great actor, he most certainly had onscreen charisma. In the last ten years or so, I’m sure you’ve seen him in big-budget, award-winning titles such as “Hard Kill,” “Survive the Night,” “Trauma Center,” “10 Minutes Gone,” “Air Strike,” “Reprisal,” and “Precious Cargo.” What do you mean you never heard of those films, are you for real? Yeah, that’s what I’d like to say to his agent. His movies nowadays go straight to DVD, much like the films of Nicolas Cage, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and countless others, who once reigned supreme at the box office. He doesn’t even pretend to give a performance anymore, he just turns up for the paycheck, mumbles a few lines, and then moves on to his next masterpiece. It’s sad, really, and to be perfectly honest, it’s about time he just quit making movies altogether, while he’s behind.
“Breach” is another sci-fi feature about the end of the world that takes place in the year 2242, with mankind journeying into outer space to colonize a recently discovered habitable planet called New Earth. On the last planned departure from earth, a spaceship called the U.S.S. Hercules sets out to transport 300,000 survivors to New Earth, leaving millions behind. Clay (Bruce Willis) is a mechanic who, much like Willis’s career, saunters around aimlessly, drinks alcohol, and orders everyone around him to do their jobs. When a parasite is discovered on the ship that can turn humans into space zombies (yes, I’m serious), it’s up to Clay and a small band of crew members to battle the zombies and save the day.
“Breach” is, without a doubt, one of the worst movies I have ever seen and not the kind that is “so bad it’s good,” no, this film makes Uwe Boll look like Francis Ford Coppola and all his movies look like “The Godfather.” While Willis is plastered all over the artwork and makes it look like he is the star, he’s not, that moniker is left to Cody Kearsley, who plays Noah, a janitor who has the personality of one of his wet mops. Seriously, this “hero” accidentally knocks over a bottle of bathroom cleaner that proceeds to consume the floor and anything else that gets in its way and he has a tendency to look as indiscriminate as Willis’s career. The special effects comprise of weapons that look more like Dollar Store toy guns and atrocious CGI alien effects that were obviously designed with the intent of scaring and thrilling its audience but instead, leaves them convulsing on the floor in fits of unadulterated laughter.
“Breach” borrows from every major sci-fi movie you can think of; “Alien,” “The Thing,” “Event Horizon,” and this intention was probably meant to elevate the film but instead, it leaves you wishing you were watching those titles instead. Thomas Jane gets high-billing in the cast as well, just like Willis, but appears onscreen for less than ten minutes before sacrificing himself. I wish I had been standing next to him at that moment so I could have ended the misery and pain of having to watch this fiasco all the way through to its laughable, ludicrous finale, which pits Noah, his pregnant girlfriend Hayley (Kassandra Clementi), and a flamethrower, against a monster that stands over 50 stories high. To show how tough Noah is, after Hayley asks him what they’re going to do as the gargantuan beast charges towards them, Noah exclaims, in his most heroic and ultramasculine voice, “Burn ’em all!” Maybe that’s what they should have done with the script.
Now playing in Select Theaters, on Digital, On-Demand, and on DVD February 2nd
