One other fellow on here gets it right: THE DEAD OF SPACE (which is the title I saw this movie under) is indeed exactly like what you would see if your average crummy B (or maybe C) grade 1950s/1960s science fiction movie had been made today. And like the appraisals of those films most of the critiques of this movie are being made based on the film's low budget, minimalist production design and lack of name-brand talent in the cast beyond Michael Pare, who easily steals the show as a psychotic scientist on board an international space station. It's easy to get distracted by such statistical data and miss whether or not the film is actually any good, which accounts for the 3 star average rating, which quite frankly in this case is unfair. Nobody's really talking about the movie itself, and what about it might work or not. Here's a try:WHAT WORKS: The film does what it can with what it has. The production design is spare but does get across the claustrophobia of an orbit bound space station pretty good. I also like the prominent role that the Russians play in this since their space program is just as important as anyone else's. There's also a clever twist on the idea of how space missions are funded with a Coca-Cola type sponsor being the private company who has paid for everything. Science comes at a price, and the crew's mission amounts to an extended commercial for their various beverage products, complete with a cynical marketing director as part of the "mission control" crew. Nice touch!WHAT DOESN'T WORK: The subplot about international terrorists having subverted the already psychotic astronaut in some bid to -- if I got this right -- crash it into Los Angeles. It isn't needed: The possibilities of a psycho astronaut are good enough and the first 20 minutes of exposition has almost zero to do with how the final conflict plays out. We've even had real life events that sort of put some of what the movie suggests into a context of reality: Remember the nut astronaut with her adult diapers driving cross-country to kidnap a romantic rival? Sure, the "mission control" scenes are poorly staged and there is a sort of wooden execution to the bulk of the cinematography, most of the acting is sub par, and an air of improbability hangs over the whole idea here. But what I am not bothered by for a second are the "on the cheap" PowerMac created special effects -- Not everybody gets to be Stanely Kubrick, I guess. And you can't fault the film's creators for having wanted to see what they could do and pulling it off for the most part.Is it bad? Sure! In fact it's the production's inherent awfulness that sort of lends a charm to it, much in the same way that garbage like PHANTOM PLANET, TOBOR and ASSIGNMENT: OUTER SPACE are rife with awfulness. The "escape flight" inside the little CGI space shuttle is particularly awful. The trick isn't in trying to forgive or excuse it, the trick is in finding content therein that redeems the awfulness, and as one other contributor points out the movie actually does do a nice job in suggesting what life on a little orbiting platform might be like ... though I'd think for the amount of money one of those things would cost you'd figure out a way to have more than six people up there, and certainly more than one good looking woman who sports red Victoria's Secret underwear beneath her form-fitting spacesuit. Then again, she's supposed to be Russian, and we should know by now that all Russian women in science fiction/action movies are total babes. Can't fault them for having her play the role to the hilt, which is definitely one of the things the film gets 100% right.5/10

This movie is only very interesting in the final moments when the space station catches on fire and begins to fall towards Earth. At this point, it presents an amazingly spooky and mystical (even Biblical) feel of a burning chariot wheel in the sky (even the feeling of weight and power is expressed well, I think), reminding me of the Ezekiel story that he saw a UFO during Biblical times. Still, it seems very unlikely in that, if everything is burning in one big blaze all around, WHERE are those other scenes of the shuttle actually taking place?Also, the robotic arm that is used to capture the girl (what was even the point of that?) seems far too big to be a part of the station, seeming more like a "Bugs Bunny" Martian episode in that light (in its movement and overly large size - and what would they even use it for - to fondle asteroids?).Or, even, what is the point of using flattened cola cans to attack each other and fix everything? Don't they have weapons or even tools as I believe someone else had mentioned? Why does everything have to say "Orbit Cola" everywhere? There is also an "-ade" drink advertised a couple of times, but I forget the name. I'm surprised they weren't wearing "Orbit Cola" space helmets. (Or were they?)It is too bad that the ending is connected to something that plays out like a 20-part Russian mini-series (with 90% of the series chopped out so that nothing seems to connect properly in any way) about a man (a genius studying the make up of the cosmos with some secret or discovery that will shock mankind?) with mental problems and acts like Jim Carey in "The Mask".Also, most - if not all, of the scenes are so ridiculously and unrealistically staged, it is rather hard to sit all the way through even once. Plus, it has a very plastic (clinical) feel as if you are watching the Thunderbirds redone in CGI.5/10, but actually much worse than that rating would probably seem to some.

This film was co-executive produced by Roger Corman, who has been producing unapologetically "low budget" horror and adventure films since the 1950s. He must surely know his stuff by now. (Another film produced by the same company was "Future Fear", starring Stacy Keach.)I think it's likely that this film is to meant be taken as a send-up, or at least one of those films that are so bad they're good.

I could only bear to watch about a half hour of this. The dialog sounds like it was written by a 3rd grader. If any of the actors in it become famous in the future, they'd most likely try to bury this movie. It makes me wonder why awful movies like this come out on DVD, whereas fine movies like Dr. Zhivago and Ben Hur are not available on DVD.