Aliens Again
In the future where shipping cargo through space is common place, Chris McNeil (Jason London) and Theta Kaplan (Missy Crider) find themselves on the same crew aboard the SSS17 which as they are secretly lovers goes against company policy. But breaking company policy is not their major worry as after their off shift in hyper sleep they wake up to discover the previous two crewmen have disappeared and they have been in hyper sleep much longer than they should have. Things proceed to get worse as they realise they are way off course and something aboard is affecting them as these lovers start to argue and fight. Now they must find out what it is before they end up killing each other.
Let me start with the positives and at least those behind "Alien Cargo" tried, you can see that they made an effort when it comes to trying to instil the movie with some sort of atmosphere. They also picked an okay cast as whilst the acting is nothing special Jason London and Missy Crider work well together especially when they end up at each others throats. Okay so they also look good together but thankfully director Mark Haber chose not to focus on them being romantic and instead on trying to get us in to their minds as they try and work out what has happened.
The trouble is that Haber is fighting a losing battle as the scenario of something aboard a space vessel psychologically affecting the humans had already been done to death by 1999 and it would have to have a really original twist to make "Alien Cargo" stand out from the crowd. It is not just the familiarity of the plot line which is a stumbling block as the non descript space ship setting is also a bust. In fact they missed a trick because the space ship could have become a character in its own right which would have helped the movie but instead all we have is a collection of screens, pipes and lights which could have been used in a number of other made for TV movies.
What this all boils down to is that "Alien Cargo" ends up just another space movie involving something aboard a spaceship which shouldn't be there. Its familiarity ends up being its undoing as whilst not a bad movie it is ultimately routine and forgettable.
