Space Station Alpha (2004 Review)

Tom always kept bugging me to actually getting round to watch the movie. And now that I finally have, I can safely say Tom's first feature length is one is a destined string of brilliance. What SSA succeeds at is sometimes using default props (the evolution of the planes and spaceships is fantastic), taking them, re-shaping them and showing all those default smelly directors who haven't a clue out there what they should really be used for. The same applies to the movie's pace and editing, which is always to perfection, and never fails to act as the precurser to the action to come.
On reflection SSA is a stange beast. Fantastic no doubt, and often visually wicked to watch, there really aren't a lot of 3dmm films like it. Tom doesn't hesitate at any point to admit to heavy conversations between action scenes, and to his credit, only in Ghost In the Shell have I seen editing so perfectly balanced. The story is well written and obviously observational, SSA never loses it's science fiction roots to pretention and falls into the expository trap. Everything is in it's place, down to the last flahing shiny button on the control panels.
Voice acting is often provoking, and, a rare turn of events SSA again pulls you in with it's emotional, and often difficult middle chapter, with Justin Dorey's character actually willing to die, and in a moving and well directed moment, during the assault on the hostile space station. Some could argue that SSA may be too short and sweet to satisfy the viewers sceptical of 3dmm's blunt, working man's toys, to which I whole-heartedly disagree. SSA only knows exactly when to quit, and when it's time for the story to end, without a drawn out, faintly senseless excuse for a mindless action-packed conclusion that fails to be better than what's already there.

SSA is a feast of a movie, and has everything, even to satisfy the most impatient viewers among us. Sci-fi wisdom at it's best.