`Supernova” achieves intergalactic nadir> ‘Runaway Bride,’ now on video, desperate attempt to recapture feeling of ‘Pretty Woman’

In Theaters “Supernova”

Look, this time let’s play it safe and not go where man hasn’t gone before. This time let’s just stay rooted to Earth and be thankful our names aren’t attached to 2000’s first big cinematic bomb, “Supernova.”

The film is the intergalactic pits, a flimsy piece of soft-core space porn that seems to exist only so its buff cast can run around in heat with their shirts off. As liberating as that might seem, in “Supernova,” it carries with it the sour smell of humiliation.

How this film’s good cast (James Spader, Angela Bassett, Lou Diamond Philips, Wilson Cruz) got shackled into such a nightmare of a sci-fi bore is beyond any comprehension. But here they are, gamely stripping down to their birthday suits for what is essentially a sex romp in space underscored with benign moments of evil.

“Supernova” is one of those sci-fi assembly line disasters that’s so lacking in originality it has no choice but to dip into a host of other sci-fi films to find its inspiration and to construct its plot. “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Alien,” “Sphere,” the “Star Trek” movies and “Lost in Space” are all pillaged from here to produce a film that’s about as sophisticated and as gripping as Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space.”

The essential problem with these sorts of sci-fi films is how characters always come at the cost of the special effects. Since the director and the screenwriters don’t care about the people they’re putting in peril, neither do we, which harms whatever dramatic tension and suspense the director could have mounted.

Not that we know who directed “Supernova.” From its inception, the troubled $60 million film has suffered a revolving cast of directors. The first, Geoffrey Wright, was replaced by Walter Hill, producer of “Alien” and director of “48 Hours,” who removed his name from the movie in favor of the fictitious “Thomas Lee,” a man who doesn’t exist but whose fictional parents must nevertheless be proud of the bang-up job their son has done here.

It’s rumored that Francis Ford Coppola re-edited the film in a last-ditch effort to save it, but apparently he didn’t want his name associated with the project either, which just confirms what’s now so painfully clear: Yes, folks, “Supernova”is a superdud.

Grade: D-

On Video “The Runaway Bride”

Garry Marshall’s runaway contrived film, “The Runaway Bride,” throws itself at the cinematic alter in a desperate attempt to recapture the same feeling, chemistry, tone, and charm of Marshall’s last big hit, 1990’s “Pretty Woman.” Sometimes, it succeeds, but that’s no stretch since we’re essentially dealing with the same cast and crew who once made Julia Roberts America’s favorite hooker.

Here, Roberts has been hauled off the streets, dusted off, fluffed up and elevated to bride status, which shows growth, I suppose. But in a film as manufactured and as stilted as this, that growth is unquestionably malignant. The problem with “Bride” is that no one involved with the film is willing to tamper with the formula that worked so well in “Pretty Woman.” No one is willing to take risks. The performances from Richard Gere as a columnist for USA Today and Roberts as a bride frequently unwilling to commit are measured, stiff — there is no looseness or spontaneity from either actor, who have set their skills on autopilot.

Worse is Marshall’s plot. Because the audience knows from the start that these two squabbling lovebirds will eventually find themselves at the altar, all dramatic tension is sucked from a film that wears its blueprint on Roberts’ many veils.

Yes, there are moments when that old May-December chemistry is spanked to life, and it’s true that sometimes the script offers a genuine laugh, but is this really the best this team could come up with — a film that proves an embarrassing truth: Julia Roberts is more convincing as a prostitute.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews are published each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and broadcast each Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”