To understand Supernova, one must first understand director Thomas Lee. Who the heck is Lee? In reality, no one. Hill is a person like Alan Smithee, the name disgruntled directors take when they do not wish their name to be associated with the movie released. Ironically, the most recent Smithee movie released was the horrifying An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, a movie that was supposed to be a satire. Now that Smithee's name is fairly well known, director Walter Hill (Last Man Standing, Wild Bill) chose the name of Lee. So apparently Hill is ashamed/angry enough not want anyone to know he directed it. Well, SUPERNOVA IS DIRECTED BY WALTER HILL! WALTER HILL! WALTER HILL!

Now that that is out of the way, Supernova is the basic monster movie (like the recent Deep Blue Sea) transplanted into space. There is a bunch of people. There is something bad. Most of the people die. The bad thing is killed. The movie has a happy ending. The Nightingale 229, a deep space rescue vessel receives a distress call from a rogue moon, and goes to investigate. En route to the distress call, the captain is killed, leaving newcomer Nick Vanzant (James Spader, Crash, Critical Care) in charge. The rest of the crew is wary of him, especially Dr. Kaela Evers (Angela Bassett, Music of the Heart, How Stella Got Her Groove Back). The crew consists of two paramedics, Yerzy Penalosa (Lou Diamond Phillips, Bats, Brokedown Palace), Danika Lund (Robin Tunney, End of Days, Niagara, Niagara), and Benj Sotomejor (Wilson Cruz, All Over Me, Fox's Party of Five) are completely forgettable. The ship picks up Karl Larson (Peter Facinelli, Can't Hardly Wait, The Big Kahuna), who became trapped after scavenging the abandoned moon. The crew also harbors suspicions about Larson (man they sure are skeptical people) which turn true when they discover an unknown substance hidden in Larson's ship.

Supernova (DIRECTED BY WALTER HILL) is not, per se, a bad movie. It definitely is not good. It just falls into the void of extreme familiarity. There are no surprises in the story by David Campbell Wilson (Vipex, the rewrite for Tomorrow Never Dies) and William Malone (Universal Soldier II). The story is utterly conventional, predictable, with little character development, and horrible dialogue. Thankfully, most of the characters stop talking about an hour into the film, when the action and special effects take over. The special effects are quite decent. The 'dimension-jumps' look surprisingly well on screen, as do the some of the computer-generated images of ships. Otherwise, there is the typical high level of violence, big explosions, and flash of breasts to keep most adolescent boys interested. For the rest of the world, rest easy in knowing that the film is directed by Walter Hill. Okay, well, it is pretty bad.