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This 1995 Showtime original cable TV-movie is your basic commandos-in-space action adventure with elements of your basic siege plot, so file it under derivative stuff not easily remembered 20 minutes after it's over.
Gung Ho futuristic leatherneck Edward Albert heads a team of hardboiled, commando-trained space troopers assigned to tangle with a warped "space pirate" and his motley gang of cuttthroats, who intend to conquer the Universe. So what else is new, gang?
Cries the head pirate: "History will remember me as the man who dazzled the Universe with the spectacle of its own destruction." Yeah, sure, Mr. Pirate. Eat my planetoid.
The Marines of tomorrow assist space diplomat James Shigeta in pulling off a hostage-for-money exchange, but it gets fouled up, as you might have suspected, and prisoners are taken. And then it's up to the trapped hero types to save the day by blasting out of the enemy compound by using stealth and conning--but mainly by using explosive firepower since this is a two-fisted tale of blazing combat..
The TV-movie highlights a plethora of galactic hardware (okay effects, but too familiar to be fresh or effective), plenty of explosions and blazing zap guns, but the telescript by Robert Moreland is weak on character and plot, and director John Weidner doesn't always succeed in making the derring-do look believable.
Only Meg Foster, as a tough Marine Corps commander, stands out in her few scenes by playing her authority role as hard as nails. Had they exploited the conflicts she has with her fellow Marines, there might have been an interesting movie here instead of just a lot of mindless action. Comic-book fodder at best. Billy Wirth, John Pyper-Ferguson, Cady Huffman, Sherman Augustus.
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