Breach

“Bruce Willis stars as Clay, a hardened mechanic selected to maintain an interstellar ark, leaving Earth from a catastrophic plague. Bound for a new planet, Clay and his small crew are responsible for the safety of the last surviving humans. But when a teammate is brutally murdered, the crew discovers a terrifying new threat: a vicious shape-shifting alien creature whose goal is to wipe out the human race before they reach their new home. Hunted by their invisible enemy, Clay must find a way to fight what they cannot even see and protect mankind from total extinction. Thomas Jane (The Predator), Cody Kearsley (Riverdale) and Rachel Nichols (Star Trek) also star in this thrilling Sci-Fi action movie.”

Bruce Willis’ name used to inspire. He was part of some of the best action and sci-fi films in history. Now, as unfortunate as it might be, his name carries little weight with the film industry, and as movie-goers, we should have all learned by now that ol’ Bruce checked out long ago. However, with Saban Films producing, I held a shred of hope that they might be the change that he, and us, were looking for, as they’ve produced some very interesting films as of late that star some big names. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The film opens as people are scrambling to get aboard the last ship headed for New Earth to escape overpopulation and a deadly plague. Noah (Cody Kearsley) and his pregnant girlfriend Hayley (Kassandra Clementi) are just able to make it on board before takeoff and despite not having tickets, they are allowed to stay due to the fact that Hayley is the daughter of the man in charge. Everyone is put to sleep except for a small group of janitors and military officers to keep order, as they enter hyper-space on their 6-month journey to their new home. Noah is assigned to Clay (Willis) and the two share a room and janitorial duties, or mostly Clay drinks and watches Noah work. As the ship arrives at the halfway point, things begin to go awry, people go missing, and the small group of those left awake must work together to fight off the threat before it’s too late.

Right away, the story of the film makes little to no sense. In a journey that takes roughly 180-some days, why are only 10-15 people kept awake to maintain everything? Of all the people that they do choose to care for hundreds of thousands of people, they choose a group of partying drunks at that. Bruce Willis again, phones in his performance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they wrote the character specifically around his actions on set. He sits there and does nothing for 90% of the film. Despite the synopsis on the back of the case, Noah is the main character of the story, who spends his time talking to his girlfriend who is in a stasis-pod when he’s not cleaning toilets and spilling corrosive chemicals. He’s just about as bland and boring of a main character as you can get, one that doesn’t go through any sort of change whatsoever, aside of perhaps earning the respect of a drunk because he shared a drink with him instead of turning him in. The alien threat is so poorly conceptualized, what little action scenes there are do little to entertain.

Granted, doing a Sci-Fi film with a low budget such as this, you are bound to run into to issues if you’re trying to go for something high-concept. But the thing is, there really isn’t anything high-concept to this. We are over 200 years in the future, with all technology, save for the spaceship and hyperdrive of course, looking exactly the same. The engine room is a spinning dial of neon rods, with the other set design just looking poor overall. Nothing about this film is believable in any way, including the ‘aliens’ that terrorize the crew, and especially the weird culmination at the end. It looks absolutely horrendous.

I’ve had a lot of fun with some of Saban Film releases, and want to support smaller studios that are putting on consistent content, especially during this pandemic when theatres really aren’t accessible. All I can say is, is that I tried to enjoy it, tried to give it the benefit of the doubt despite its ratings. All you can do is watch it yourself if so inclined and make your own judgement, but be warned of what you’re in store for: an absolute mess of a film that holds little to no entertainment value, and one of Bruce Willis’ worst performances.

Video

Breach is released on DVD in Standard Definition Widescreen 2.39:1. Not much to say about this transfer, as the DVD lacks the detail and quality you’d expect from a Blu-ray. The majority of the film takes place on the dark spaceship, which helps hide some of the bad CG effects. The ending has one of the strangest looking blue-tints that I’ve ever seen. The disc does include a digital copy, so that would be the recommended way of watching the film to see it in High Definition.

Audio

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. This track sounds good overall. The large majority of the film you’ll hear dialogue from the center channel, but when things start to get going the surrounds can be utilized effectively to produce some good action sound: the moans from the bodies taken over by the aliens, the gunfire, etc.

Special Features

There are no extras on the disc. A digital copy of the film is included.

With some of the better films that Saban has put out, Breach isn’t one of them. But if you’re a ‘Die Hard’ Bruce Willis fan and can’t get enough of him, you might just reach your limit when you see his performance in this film. Still, I commend the filmmakers to give a low-budget sci-fi film a chance, and perhaps if things were reworked a little, it might have been successful. Give it a shot if you have some time to kill.