SPACE/TIME Review: Saving the World Is Never Easy

All you need is a little imagination. And a soldering iron.

Space/Time
The film releases January 13 throughout North America via various Video On Demand platforms via Epic Pictures Group. Visit the official site for more information.

Low-budget science fiction is my jam, because it takes much more imagination to conjure up a thrilling adventure out of spare circuit boards than to dial up special effects through visual wizardry.

It's not a knock on modern visual effects, usually created by an army of talented artists toiling tirelessly to realize someone else's cinematic vision. Instead, low-budget science-fiction films remind me of the handiwork of artists such as Willis O'Brien, whose fingerprints are all over King Kong (1933).

Director Michael O'Halloran and his team create a diverting "near-future" world for their film, Space/Time, which occupies itself for its first two acts with a group of scientists who are developing an engine for interstellar travel. The opening moments establish that the world is in imminent danger and won't last more than a few years; we're given to understand that interstellar travel will somehow stop or solve tremendous environmental issues that are threatening the future of life on Earth, though exactly how is not initially explained.

Indeed, after a brief opening sequence that depicts the first few minutes of something going very, very wrong with the scientists' first experiment with their incredibly large engine -- sirens blare, lights flash, everyone starts trying to evacuate a very small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean -- the film jumps ahead three years without showing exactly what happened, though we suspect something terrible happened, because propulsive protagonist Liv (Ashlee Lollback) and her fellow middle managers are finally cleared of any charges (?!).

Liv was introduced in the film's opening sequence as a key player among the scientists, even though she's only a middle manager of some sort. She manifests strong leadership among the scientists, which impresses Harris (Pacharo Mzembe), who has just arrived to build a spaceship that will use the engine that the scientists are developing. In any event, the opening sequence intrigues without answering any questions; then we're three years later, and Liv and Harris are living together and still dealing with the aftermath of whatever happened.

Director Michael O'Halloran, who wrote the script with Adam Harner and also edited the film, moves the narrative forward in a two-fold manner, first by following Liv as she accepts a new position to rebuild the interstellar engine, and second by following an extended flashback, revealing what happened on the fateful day that has scarred all the characters.

Beyond Liv, who drives the film forward on both narrative tracks, and Harris, who recedes into the background for much of the time, the third key character is Holt (Hugh Parker), a scientist who oversaw her work in the past, and now serves as the lightning rod for all the action in the primary narrative, in concert with Liv or in conflict with her. It's not accurate to call him a "mad scientist," but his actions remind of that archetype because he ignores all else except the mission that's in front of him.

To be frank, during my first viewing, I sometimes found it difficult to understand who was doing what to whom throughout the first two acts, and then was completely baffled by Act III. Upon my second viewing, everything became much clearer, and I found Act III even better than the first time, its dazzling action -- nearly all of it revolving around a limited number of characters in a giant warehouse -- improbably becoming quite thrilling.

Anyone with a proclivity for science fiction, as well as anyone who wonders exactly why the film is titled Space/Time, will enjoy the pace as it accelerates in Act III and appreciate what the filmmakers accomplished with a low budget and a lot of imagination.