Directed by Edward Drake
Written by Edward Drake, Corey Large
Starring Frank Grillo, Bruce Willis, Brandon Thomas Lee
Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
Available for digital rental March 12

by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

When I was a kid, my mom managed a video store. Part of her job was to watch screener tapes that movie studios sent her and she’d use my siblings and I as a test audience to determine how many tapes she’d order of certain movies (I know I’m aging myself here talking about ‘tapes’ and ‘video stores’). If our reaction was “Meh,” she’d get like one tape–it was a small town, one tape could satisfy an entire town. If we were over the moon for it, she’d get a few. 

During this time, I grew a fondness for low-budget movies from Cannon Pictures, Full Moon Features and others. They’re like comfort food for me. And I believe studios like Saban Films and Blumhouse are carrying on a fine tradition of celebrating low budgets, by not simply throwing money at a problem. They use ingenuity whenever possible to tell a story. 

Cosmic Sin by Saban Films is a well-made, slick-looking sci-fi movie that clearly has budgetary constraints, but if you knew little-to-nothing about the filmmaking process, you’d never know. It uses clever editing techniques to make the budget look much higher than it really is. And I’m glad to see a limited use of CGI. A little CGI goes a long way. Sparse usage can elevate existing effects. Too much, and you wind up with a goofy-looking cartoon. 

The film begins with “first contact” between humans and aliens. Something goes wrong, but the decision-makers back on Earth are unsure of what actually happened. They have a contingency, which is to drop a massive doomsday device and annihilate them in a blink-of-an-eye genocide before they have a chance to hit us first. They briefly discuss the moral implications of ending a war before it starts, and then the film quickly abandons this interesting premise in favor of an action movie that, unfortunately, raises interesting questions, then dismisses them in favor of some bland story-telling. 

Edward Drake directs and co-wrote the script with Corey Large. The problem, I think, is that the movie sets up a lot of potentially-interesting ideas, then doesn’t do anything with them. In the opening scene, which for whatever reason has a very slasher movie feel, but set in space, sort of like a Jason X throwback, a man and a woman encounter the alien species, and a man fires a warning shot, to prove to the woman that there’s nothing out there. He ventures into the darkness and vanishes, presumably grabbed by the aliens. This sets up a premise that is colored in shades of gray: What if the aliens were only protecting themselves, and we’re already moving ahead on plans to wipe them out as a first strike? Is that wrong? 

Perhaps, but it’s handwaved away as moments later, we do meet the aliens, and they are indeed very, very evil. They want to conquer humanity in planet, body and mind. They’re a collective intelligence not unlike the Borg of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and have the ability to conquer human bodies and assume their memories. The set-up made me long for the examinations of fascism in Starship Troopers. In Cosmic Sin, it’s surprising that humanity is still alive 500 years later because they are largely awful. Very little has changed between now and then. People still drive traditional-looking vehicles set on tires (I assume this is due to the film’s budget); people still embrace violence at a moment’s notice; and, worse yet, there’s no one to root for.

I can understand if “humanity is awful” is the point of the movie, but it’s hard to see what, exactly, the point is. The genocide of this alien species is quickly justified as it’s revealed that they are hellbent on hitting humanity as soon as possible. Bruce Willis, as James Ford, a disgraced military man, who under the excuse that he was, “just following orders” has committed atrocities against his own people, is wasted in this film. A man intent on redeeming himself is, again, and interesting idea, and like so many ideas, the film quickly abandons this. He has no intention of redeeming himself and has no real misgivings about his past. The past is what it is, and he doesn’t appear to feel particularly bad about it. Bruce Willis has a natural swagger and a screen presence that lends itself well to action pictures. He just needed a little conflict. Ford, as who is presumably the film’s antihero, kills indiscriminately and without apology. He doesn’t even appear to have mercy, behind his actions, he just gets annoyed very easily. 

Earlier, I brought up Cannon Pictures, and the reason I loved those movies is because even though these were such low budget outings, they had a real sense of fun. Something like American Ninja had these moments built in to make audiences whoop and cheer. Cosmic Sin doesn’t have much of that–hell, it doesn’t even appear to have a main character. I’m not sure who the main character even is. We have a lot of characters, and we catch little glimpses into what makes them tick, but never at any point do we ever get to know anybody or care about what happens to them. During an early action sequence, after the briefest of introductions to our cast of characters, nothing is at stake. And later, as they fight for the future of humanity, I didn’t really care because the only thing at stake was a planet full of shitty people versus a planet of evil aliens. 

Cosmic Sin isn’t an awful movie. It’s well-made, it looks great, and the actors all do their best. It’s just that there’s so much more potential in there. It has an idea it didn’t do enough with and a great cast that isn’t given enough to work with. It has well-shot action sequences without enough emotional attachment. It feels like a first draft to something that could have been really special.