Roland Emmerich doesn't make good movies. At his best he makes entertaining movies (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow), at his worst he makes extraordinarily bad movies. This movie falls into the latter catagory.
First, this movie comes from that brief period from 89-91, when every aspiring sci-fi movie maker was hiding their budget restrictions with darkly-lit sets, steam effects and claustrophobic field of view. And corridors - you can never have enough corridors with lots of PVC conduit.
Second, Roland Emmerich saw Alien, Blade Runner, Blue Thunder (yes helicopters) and Star Wars and decided it'd be a great idea to smash elements of each of these into his movie. Oh, and he saw RoboCop too, so he borrowed a bit from that movie also. He also likes prison rape, so he threw that in (yeah, really).
The result is a movie that makes zero sense. People, nowadays, confuse unexplained plot elements with plot holes, when plot holes are actually elements of a movie that make no sense and aren't reconcilable. This movie is the perfect example of Roland Emmerich at his most swiss cheesy, because the movie is so full of holes that virtually nothing makes any logical sense.
Why do the "heroes" fighter aircraft consist of helicopters in the same future where every other vehicle is powered by far more advanced technology? Why does everyone just allow the rape to occur? Why does everyone seem to be oblivious to what happened (including the victims best friend) when it's convenient in the moment (but not the next scene). The entire setup with the "navigators" makes absolutely no aeronautical sense and does nothing but convolute when is essentially a bare-bones story.
If reading the above paragraph makes you think this might be a terrible movie, you'd be correct. This is a truly dreadful, cliche ridden mess of awful dialog combined with some of the worst acting you'll ever see committed to film. Is it worth watching? If you like bad movies, yes it is, but you have to be quite the masochist to subject yourself to this steaming heap.
First, this movie comes from that brief period from 89-91, when every aspiring sci-fi movie maker was hiding their budget restrictions with darkly-lit sets, steam effects and claustrophobic field of view. And corridors - you can never have enough corridors with lots of PVC conduit.
Second, Roland Emmerich saw Alien, Blade Runner, Blue Thunder (yes helicopters) and Star Wars and decided it'd be a great idea to smash elements of each of these into his movie. Oh, and he saw RoboCop too, so he borrowed a bit from that movie also. He also likes prison rape, so he threw that in (yeah, really).
The result is a movie that makes zero sense. People, nowadays, confuse unexplained plot elements with plot holes, when plot holes are actually elements of a movie that make no sense and aren't reconcilable. This movie is the perfect example of Roland Emmerich at his most swiss cheesy, because the movie is so full of holes that virtually nothing makes any logical sense.
Why do the "heroes" fighter aircraft consist of helicopters in the same future where every other vehicle is powered by far more advanced technology? Why does everyone just allow the rape to occur? Why does everyone seem to be oblivious to what happened (including the victims best friend) when it's convenient in the moment (but not the next scene). The entire setup with the "navigators" makes absolutely no aeronautical sense and does nothing but convolute when is essentially a bare-bones story.
If reading the above paragraph makes you think this might be a terrible movie, you'd be correct. This is a truly dreadful, cliche ridden mess of awful dialog combined with some of the worst acting you'll ever see committed to film. Is it worth watching? If you like bad movies, yes it is, but you have to be quite the masochist to subject yourself to this steaming heap.