A for Andromeda (2006)
IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 30 minutes, rated 5.2 by 712 generous cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy.
DNA: UK (Wales).
Verdict: Oh Hum.
Tagline: B for boring.
We know they are scientists by their white coats which protect their clothes from stains while monitoring a radio telescope. Photons leave such a mess. These astronomers are bullied by a cartoon paymaster general who never wears a uniform and has uniformed military police (Red Caps) to open doors for him.
They get an SMS from Andromeda (and none of them has seen The Andromeda Strain [1971]) so they click on the link which gives them the directions to build, evidently from materials lying around, a super deluxe super computer in return for their banking passwords. (No they haven’t seen The Forbin Project [1970] either.) Even as this Lego project is going on the number of white coats is being reduced by deaths. Get it!
The computer they have built wants company and before you can say STUPID these astronomers have cultivated a humanoid in a bento box who looks just one of them, now dead.
Enough! It gets worse without getting better. There is a gratuitous side plot about the evil CIA. What would screenwriters do without this straw villain.
Just as the scriptwriters and director know nothing about armies they seem to know even less about science. Surprisingly, that is common after a hundred and fifty years of free public education.
I longed for some convoluted but amusing AI subtitles as relief from the pompous but trivial dialogue. The solution was to turn the sound down…a lot. Some of the photography of Wales is good but has nothing to do with the plot. Yes, I know the plot puts it in the Yorkshire Dales, but shooting location credits says Wales, so there!
Otherwise the camera work is monotonous with one headshot after another, so close up that one sees inverted hairs, acne spots galore, cocaine spots, and some pores that need purgation. At other times it is cinéma vérité jerky or even freeze frame, very distracting in many cases. Most film-school projects have better camera work.
Apart from so many unnatural deaths there is some ambiguity about what is going on, but that is obliterated by the persistent cartoonish representation of the mufti general. And of course the male lead is a high school stereotype: so brilliant that others abide his adolescent irresponsibility, so unorthodox that no one knows what he is doing, so handsome beneath the designer (get a new designer!) peach fuzz all the women fall before his myopic gaze, and so underwritten as to be a cipher.
The best thing about it is that it does not have Stephen Seagal in it. Admittedly, that is always a major plus. Sorry Fred, but that’s the truth. The 1961 television series was far more interesting. but does not now seem available. The reconstruction is, well, a poor thing.