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martin-bullivant
Reviews
The Cold Equations (1996)
Virtuallly unwatchable
I'm a real SF fan-have been for 40 years. I've read the short story, heard the 50's Radio adaptation-both of those by their very nature avoided the problem that made me give up on this movie-which is that it was filmed with such atrociously bad (non-existent?) lighting that you can't really tell what's happening. Maybe it was intended to convey the dark storyline.... but all it does is look... well... dark. I kept expecting the actors to trip over stuff or ask for a coin for the electricity meter. At first I wondered if it was just a bad print but no, the shots of the backlit displays in close up were clear.
It really was shockingly awful-which is a shame as what I endured visually was not matched by a similarly poorly delivered dialogue. But after a while of squinting and screwing my eyes up to see it (on a 43 inch flat screen TV!) I felt a headache brewing.
After 20 minutes I gave up.