The Black Hole

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Steve, A.J.

Wow, that's the worst trailer ever.

Fun Disney Space adventure! Right? Umm, not quite. Although it starts out pretty much along those lines. A crew of great classically trained actors and a philosophy spouting floating robot sidekick come across a massive craft poised on the edge of a black hole and investigate. They find is filled with robots and one power mad scientist.

John Barry provides a cool theme tune, but it gets repetitive very quick. There's some cutesy stuff with the robots their lazer firing competition being the most annoyingly superfluous. The good robot, Vincent, is voiced by Roddy McDowall who, even though he is uncredited, I instantly recognised having just watched through all the extras on the Planet of the Apes bluray set which he narrates. What's really bizarre is the Robot has E.S.P. and can telepathically communicate with one of the crew members. That is some trippy stuff right there. But that's just the beginning.

So you have your whole film slowly plodding along, you get some expected sci-fi stuff, the scientist wants to fly through the black hole and his robot minions were once the human crew members, he's clearly crazy. They try to escape and have to fight the robots. The action is a little clunky but fine for what they were working with. All the miniature work on the space craft is awesome.

But then they get pulled into the black hole and things go from disney kids film to far out 2001 Space Odyssey biblical epic mind trip for a few brief minutes and then credits. It's a huge shift and such a crazy end to what happens before it, completely esoteric and a very strange place to go in supposedly family friendly disney film.

It must be seen to be believed. I hear Joseph Kosinski was planning this as his next Disney Remake after Tron last year. I wonder if they will keep the ending...