Well, I'm roughly about halfway through the movie (which is about as far as I dare watch tonight considering I have to get up again in about 3-4 hours for Work), and so far I'm enjoying the movie a lot more than I remembered liking it back when I first saw it. Just a couple thoughts for the moment:
1. Yeah, I agree with some of the sentiments above: these actors are
way too old to be playing high school students. If they really wanted to use these actors, they should have tweaked the story to make them college students. It's not like the story would have changed much.
2. Denise Richards is about as convincing playing a Maverick-style pilot as she was playing a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough. That is to say, she's not the least bit convincing. With that stupid grin always plastered on her face she looks like she's trying out to be a Mouseketeer or sell toothpaste or something. When she's at the controls, she looks like a 10 year-old child getting into a bumper car.
3. There's both a lot more graphic violence and nudity than I remembered in this movie.
4. The editing's really choppy, with a lot of abrupt cuts between scenes. Considering those "internet ad"-style transitions work really well, I'm surprised they didn't use them more than they have so far.
5. Wow, I was pleasantly surprised to see both Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside in this movie. It's not every day that Darkseid and Lex Luthor get to be on the same side.
6. The visuals have both held up a lot better and a lot worse than I expected (I'm watching the Blu-Ray version, btw). The bugs in general look great and it's really nostalgic seeing actual model ships flying through space instead of CG models, but there's also a lot of unconvincing compositing and some of the props look really fake (like Michael Ironside's amputated arm).
7. Ok, seriously, what is with the double-standard on that incident with the asteroid and Richards' ship? Apparently, a teammate accidentally killing a guy who couldn't keep his helmet on straight was bad enough to narrowly come close to dishonorable discharge for Rico. Meanwhile, because Richards and her new boy-toy were too busy flirting on the bridge instead of doing their jobs and keeping watch, they somehow missed that
giant asteroid headed right for them until it was nearly on top of them. Because of this, not only does a sizeable portion of the ship get ripped off (killing who knows how many people), but millions of people die back on Earth when the asteroid collides and it starts a War. All this because Richards is a slut, and what does the captain do? She praises her piloting ability. Are you kidding me?