Bruce Willis has had some pretty low-grade stinkers in his long cinematic career, just as he’s also had his genuine greats. His latest science fiction film, “Breach,” will likely leave everyone scratching their head as to how he’s outdone them all – and not in a good way.
The story which goes- a colony ship leaving a dying Earth to settle on a new world finds its crew battling a polymorphic alien that has managed to get aboard- is hardly a bad logline. “Breach” can be readily described as elements from “The Thing” and “Prometheus” blended together.
While not exactly blazing new trails in cinema, there’s enough in “Breach” to hang a few hours of entertainment on. However where the film falls apart is that its production quality overall would make the lower-grade “Star Trek” fan films blush. There is nothing at all wrong with a low budget production or b-movies, unable to leverage big studio effects.
There are any number of minimalist effects-budget films that still succeed – 2018’s “Prospect” comes to mind. And just because a movie doesn’t take itself seriously doesn’t mean they can’t be memorable and fun, “Buckaroo Bonzai” is a perfect example of a great idea and execution on a shoestring budget (they used bubble-wrap for hologram-viewing goggles and managed to make it seem cool).
But in “Breach,” the effects are bad, the dialogue is terrible, the story is shoddy, the whole affair is such that after about 10 minutes you start to realize, ‘oh, maybe the first few scenes weren’t a fluke’ but rather that the whole thing may be as bad as you’ve seen so far.
To be honest, it just gets worse.
Thomas Jane also stars as Admiral Adams-King. Jane (who to be fair has been in a number of low Rotten Tomato scoring direct-to-video flicks), is himself barely phoning this one in. Often sporting aviator sunglasses and shouting out lines with a derision that can only come from a “how did I get myself into this mess?,” kind of mood.
The lackluster performances only reenforce the fact that the audience is never given any particular reason to root for these unseemly characters. So when the alien entity starts knocking off the crew and/or taking over their bodies (by leaking black goo, or sprouting badly-rendered CGI tentacles), the main thought that comes to mind is that you can use the remaining crew as a countdown timer before the film will [hopefully] come to an end.
I wish I could say there was anything redeeming to find in “Breach,” or a way to have some fun with it, but I really can’t.
Even the MST3K crew would have a hard time finding a way to spin this one. If you want to check it out on a dare, more power to you. Go into it with the mindset of trying to accept the cheese factor, and you might just make it through.
Rating: 0.5 out of 10
“Breach” is rated R, and available for rental via Amazon Prime.
