User reviews

This is one of the best on-a-shoestring-budget films I have seen in a while. The CGI isn't bad, the acting is solid and their is plenty of action.

All that said this movie isn't a great way to spend two hours. With a lot of indie films you can not only forgive dodgy effects but delight in them, they are somehow part of it. Debugs slickness actually works against it, the few dodgy elements like the ludicrously clean cut bad guy and the odd flickery greenscreen-work stick out like sore thumbs. Instead of a friendly, grungy production this has a distinct whiff of corporate Hollywood about it, which again makes it harder to love.

The story is straight out of a Twilight Zone episode, nothing special.

Actors mainly do OK, predictably the beautiful ladies get down to their vest and pants before the bad guy comes after them. I had no doubt who was going to make it out alive but to be honest I didn't really care.

A very good effort but Nothing special.

There is little point in beating around the bush about it: the obvious comparison for Debug is Event Horizon. While the subplots and backgrounds may differ, both films deal with the same scenario: an evil that has taken over a spaceship and a crew that comes to investigate. Comparing the two, it is peculiar to find that the reason Event Horizon worked so much better has nothing to do with its production values and everything to do with its focus on atmosphere—an area where Debug has every opportunity to match it, and simply fails to do so.

To its credit, Debug manages to stand up fairly well in quite a few aspects and punches well above its budget in terms of production values.

The acting is all right, with the exception of Jason Momoa's campy creep performance as I Am. Perhaps, already having achieved fame as Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones, he did not feel the same need to distinguish himself as the other actors. Perhaps the role simply did not suit him. Either way, the lacklustre sleaze he brings to the role cheapens and stifles all tension and drama whenever he is on screen. Jeananne Goossen and Sidney Leeder, in contrast, bring life and character to their roles, whereas the rest of the cast is simply passable.

The visuals in Debug are not without flaws, but they are at times gorgeous. (The HUD effects, in particular, stand out.) Sadly, they sometimes fail to impart a feeling of reality—of substance. Future technology may be clean and durable, but any surface will have wear and tear. In Debug, they tend to look like freshly moulded plastic—featureless and flimsy. Strangely, this does not seem to be down to capability so much as aesthetics, as it is true for the set as much as the CGI. As a whole, though, the visuals work, and most of the time the set and the CGI fit well together.

Sound effects are generally fair to pretty damned good, although they tend to fail to produce a sense of presence. The same goes for the score, which seems to have been mixed as so to be unobtrusive rather than evocative—a strange choice for a horror film.

All in all, it would seem Debug has enough good points to provide a solid horror experience. (After all, many films have done so with less.) As sci-fi horror is a genre I love and the space-based variety is woefully underrepresented, it disheartens me to say that it does not—and for rather bizarre reasons. You see, while the production would have worked well for a sci-fi drama, its manner of presentation promotes detachment rather than immersion. The tension never grabs you and events never draw you in, making the actual horror elements fall flat. Part of it is editing, but choices made in seemingly every aspect of the film—from character exposition to camera angles—exacerbate the problem. The effect, tragically, is an audience indifference this type of narrative can ill afford, making a film that could have, should have been a rough gem turn out to be just another barren space rock.

Debug is, in the end, a mediocre film with several massive, bulky cargo holds full of wasted potential due to an almost mindless indifference to the core driver of every good horror film—atmosphere.

Oh dear. Just... oh dear. I like science fiction and I always enjoy seeing a good 'spaceship' type set. Just about the only two big budget 'spaceship set-type' movies of recent years were the Star Trek reboots and Prometheus. Therefore, I always try to give a space movie a chance. I shouldn't have bothered here. If you see this film out on DVD in the shops, you may notice its quite flashy box. Don't be deceived. The cover art is about the most expensive part of this whole film.

Basically, it's cheap. That's really all you need to know. During the opening scene, you'll get a sort of establishing shot of the outside of a giant spaceship. Only it looks like it was designed on a ZX Spectrum. I probably should have turned the film off there and saved myself an hour and a half. What follows is six kids (okay, teens – but they acted like kids in my opinion) trying to get rid of an (evil) artificial intelligence from the spaceship's computer. The kids wear cheap orange uniforms and I wonder which genius actually entrusted them to this critical mission? Surely the crew of the Red Dwarf would be more organised than this crowd? The spaceship is nothing new – white clean-looking corridors and... well, that's about it. Nothing new and certainly nothing expensive.

You won't give a damn about a single character. They're all equally bland. I guess I should be grateful they're not that annoying. Anyway, in this cheap 2001: A Space Odyssey set, you get a vague Event Horizon plot where the kids have to face their fears (or something – I was kind of tuning out by this stage). But, whereas Event Horizon had a cool Gothic feel for its decent, well-known actors to get lost in, this one is just cheap white corridors for its unknown cast to find – apparently – scary stuff in.

Yes, it's fair to say that I didn't like it. Granted I didn't really hate it, it's just there's nothing new here and nothing I have seen, only much better. If you like your 'spaceship movies' (like I do), just watch anything from Star Trek to Event Horizon (or Pandorum – I liked that, but no one else seemed to). Just forget this and ignore the enticing cover art on its DVD box.

Okay, it had one positive: the 'HUDs' (heads up displays) were kind of neat and I'd never seen that special effect before. But that alone wasn't worth an hour and a half of my time.

The highlight of the movie is watching Sidney Leeder's character flirt, tease, and taunt other crew. She's one of the few characters that has some depth, motivation, and sense of fun.

Jason Momoa wasn't bad as a menacing AI, but he wasn't a character to empathize with - or even to love to hate. He ultimately had the 2 dimensional motivation of an AI following his programming, but with a maniacal murder streak. Without a truly 3 dimensional villain, he may as well be a glitchy computer or one with a loose wire. He seems to want to kill and torture... just because. Senseless violence is boring.

Some CGI was really entertaining. The best parts being those that blend into the scenes - like e-mail in their heads up displays. Parts of the ship were well done. The exterior shots were very well done.

Honestly, I think I'd have enjoyed the movie more without the killer AI - just fleshing out the prisoner characters' backgrounds and interactions more and their frustrations with the limitations of their freedoms. The movie is like a bad episode of Outer Limits where we get little exposition and narrative followed by mindless violence / action sequences meant perhaps to visually impress, but utterly lacking substance. Just having Momoa on a monitor talking was more menacing and entertaining than the whole opening sequence of the movie.

David Hewlett is one of my favorite actors. I applaud his effort in writing and directing a full length film. It's better than many made- for-TV Syfy channel craptastic flicks of the month. I think with some work, we could see this again in another form with more well rounded characters and a better story arc for the "heroes" and villain.

I wouldn't recommend the movie, but there are worse ways to spend your time. I'd describe it as having elements of Cube, Jason X, and Hackers. I'm hoping this was a proof of concept flick to show that David Hewlett is ready to take the helm of something larger.

This will be a waste of time for you if you like sci-fi, thrillers, horrors, or Jason M. Speaking of, I don't understand the reviews saying he did a good job. The guy can't act, like most of these good looking muscle guys. He over played his role causing him to come off hokey. Nothing happens in this film. You don't learn anything about the characters, unless you read the small text at the beginning of the movie which only lasts a second. The ending is completely odd and rushed. It wanted to be event horizon, and tried to be Pandorum, but was easily forgettable in the end.

The Good Bits

1.Firstly, when watching this you have to remember this is a low budget movie. It's never going to have the slick VFX of blockbusters like the new Star Trek films. That said, I think both the VFX and SFX were really good. I totally bought that these people were in deep space on a ship. The id chips and the personal visual displays were particularly good.

2.You can tell Jason Momoa is having a good time playing the bad guy - and he does a solid job. Adrian Holmes also puts in a good performance as the corrupt warden in charge of the group.

3. The opening 20-30 minutes are well paced and set up the story well. The first part of the film creates an unsettlingly clinical atmosphere that unfortunately is not sustained throughout the film. The ending wraps things off nicely and feels like a satisfactory conclusion for the audience.

The Not So Good Bits

1. Characterisation. I felt if you removed several of the debug crew from the film it would not affect the plot in any way e.g. the characters Samson Connoly and Lara Riley felt like they were extraneous.

2. The fact that all but one of the female characters stripped down to their underwear, for generally unknown and spurious reasons, while none of the men so much as rolled up their sleeves. It made this film feel like, despite it's futuristic storyline, the writing belongs to history bin.

This didn't cost much as they certainly saved on sets, script, FX and direction. Brainless low rent tosh.

This one stars really bad and you can tell that the budget will be an important factor but with time it gets better and once you get used to the image, you can start checking out the plot.

Is it anything like Hackers? A ship with a Evil mind going on a killing spree and the only way to stop it is to fight a program with another better program, hackers doing what they do best, some visual effects here and there, a little blood, no scares, ah and if you are a girl a lot of Momoa. So no, not much to do with real hacking, just a half decent horror scifi, I've seen better, I've seen worse, I would never recommend Debug to anyone tho. It's just a production, a way for the people involved in the making of it to show what they are capable of and try to snatch a bigger project in the near future. I wish them all good luck, I think they can do more!

Debug is better than Stranded per example but it ain't no Event Horizon either. I gave it a 4.

Cheers!

First of all: This is a low-budget movie and should be treated as such. If you're expecting state of the art CGI and explosions everywhere this might not be the film for you. If you're like me on the other hand then this might be exactly what you're looking for. The good thing about this movie, and a lot of other low-budget sci-fi, is that they aren't forced to do the usual "handsome guy falls in love while saving the world"-story. If you enjoyed movies like Solaris or Sunshine and aren't overly concerned with CGI then give this one a try. Don't get me wrong, just because the CGI isn't as good as you might be used to from a big budget movie doesn't mean this film looks in any way bad. The effects are actually pretty good for this type of film and the set is well made. Special mention goes to Sidney Leeder and the lead actress Jeananne Goossen. They both did a great job.

I hope someone can share that with me. We really couldn't figure what the point to the movie was outside of the description provided by IMDB. Surely there HAD to be better scripts out there to have taken advantage of the talent because this was just awful. I gave it the rating I did for the design of the spacecraft at the very end of the movie (which made more sense as a space craft over what it looked like the other 99% of the time).

Pop some popcorn set back and get ready for a pretty good movie. If you are bored, and want to watch something kinda funny, different, cheesy, and slightly scary... this movie is perfect for you. Sometimes we need to step back and enjoy artists doing what they do, making movies, and acting in them. There are some parts of the movie that are actually pretty startling. What this movie lacks in big budget it makes up for in a nice set, and some cute actors. Also one of the actors looks like David Henry. Also shout out for using a LGBT character in a different way! Overall this movie is pretty good, watch it tonight!I rated this film a 8!

If you consider yourself a movie critic savant, go buy your tickets, eat your popcorn and stick to the big screen. Those big money making movie producers/director/actors eagerly want your reviews!

For people who know how to enjoy different genres and can enjoy low-budget films, then watch it. So in a nutshell is it big screen material? No. Horror? Not really. Predictable? Yes. Low-budget? Definitely and very obvious.

Acting was decent, even Mamoa. You can't put Mamoa in a movie and not have him physically kicking ass, even as an AI! Is it worth watching just because Mamoa stars in it? Meh.... Is it worth watching because David Hewlett's name is stamped on it? Yes!

Does it leave you feeling euphoric? No. Would I watch it again? Yes.

So I recommend you watch it, on a lazy day while multi-tasking on a laptop/iPad. Keep in mind that if you are expecting a mind-blowing out of the ordinary movie, don't bother watching. IT IS A LOW-budget movie. The Sci-Fi channel has put some seriously bad movies out there, so compare to those, Debug falls in that realm of a decent Sci-Fi watchable.

The computer system of a spaceship develops delusions of grandeur and starts murdering the crew. Where have we heard that one before? Oh yeah, HAL 9000 in Arthur C. Clarke's "2001..." Well guess what, 2001 has come and gone, and to date only 12 men have walked on the Moon, not only in the last century but in the last Millennium.

Unsurprisingly, this story is said have been inspired by the aforementioned novel or the film based on it. Is there anything in "Debug" we haven't seen before? Not really, there is not much of a plot, nor even a side-plot, even the love interest that might be expected to develop on a spaceship where guys and gals are confined together doesn't materialise, unless one counts a bit of light banter as a love interest.

Seriously, does "Debug" have anything to offer? Well, if you like bright lights and mild special effects you might find something of interest here, but if you are a "Dr Who" fan with an IQ over 70, you can forget even that.

By far the most impressive thing about Debug is Jason Momoa's acting so maybe that gives you some idea of how lame this movie really is. It's like someone who's only watched bad horror movies and played video games suddenly saw 2001 and thought it was a bit boring and that he could do a better job. He then hired his failing acting school buddies to play all the parts for free. Spent half the budget on Jason Momoa and the other half on CG (of which 3/4 probably went on the HUD effects since some of the CGI in this looks terrible).

To warn for spoilers in this review would be pointless. There is no plot. It's also not scary nor funny. It's just plain boring.

What were they even thinking? Terrible scripting, horrible acting and a beyond stupid premise. I can only think David Hewlett had something on Jason Mamoa from their Stargate Atlantis days to get him to be a part of this pile of trash. To be fair I didn't go into this expecting much and yet I was still disappointed. There wasn't even a decent kill in the entire farce of a film. Do yourself a favour and spend the 85 minutes staring at a blank piece of paper instead of watching this!

It was a perfect example of how it takes a great director to make a great film. Jason momoa was awesome as aquaman and in GOT but this and conan he was terrible. He needs to be directed, in his defense in this film he was miscast. Was more of a role for a Kevin spacey or creepy guy like that. Jason has a intimidating presence and the film needs to reflect that. This film was bad because of casting AND directing I dont believe you need a big budget to make a great film you need a great creative team, ie the evil dead, sunshine, films of that nature. I'd pass on this nothing good to say at all.

This movie starts out bad, and unsurprisingly, gets worse from there. The acting is amateurish, the special effects are rudimentary, and the plot is contrived and better handled in films such as "Event Horizon". Even as a fan of Jason Momoa, I still found myself wondering how anyone thought this movie was a good idea, as it was just so basic in terms of size and scope. The one area where it could have been something special (the FX and Gore) was edited, so that you never actually saw the deaths but the after effects, which is a cop out if I ever saw one. The only good thing about this film would have to be the design of the ship itself. Everything else? Incredibly mundane and bland, just like the rest of the movie. A horrible vision of a horrible future, this movie would have been truly something special had it been handled by a competent and talent team. Avoid, as I should have.

Though fun might not be the right word for it. Still if you have a thing for Science Fiction movies and do not mind, if they are low budget and filled with some gore and plenty of action. It also features very bad character decision and some questionable acting. But it's all in the fun of it (if you're having it, that is).

Actually the set design is not that bad for the money had. The blood and general special effects are more than decent too. You can see where this is going (in contrast to some of the characters and their very poor choices, but then again, they were criminals, more or less), so no surprises there. But the movie is done nicely and it is entertaining most of the time

Bottom line is this movie was painful to watch. Hurt almost as bad a trying to crap out a knotted rope. Think I'm kidding? Hit the play button and see what I mean. You will be screaming for some exlax to get some relief. Sorry aquaman but this was not good... next

8 of 10. A dystopia setup for young, attractive, anti-system hackers to attempt to overcome. A virtual reality sci-fi set in space on a spaceship that needs, fittingly, debugging. The debugging, to add a further twist, is being done by hackers convicted as criminals who are serving there sentences as a combination of community service and separation/imprisonment from the rest of civilization.

Space science fiction is essentially a virtual experience at this point, so combining it with computers, hacking, and virtual reality makes it more immersive and you have to wonder whether the characters are real or virtual. Throw in some criminals and an out of control bio-AI that's been setup by the military, and you have the horror element.

This isn't a Star Trek space fantasy sci-fi, an alien fantasy, or a time travel fable. One of the missing elements is why there are ships in space at all, what purpose if any they're serving society. That's left to the imagination, but the ending has a smooth, unforced sequel setup for filling in more of the future it happens in.

The acting is super mediocre. I really wanted to like this. I love sci fi horrors. Lots of reviewers seem to compare this to Event Horizon. It really has nothing similar other than its in space and has a spaceship. Its like saying Donald Trump and a pig are the same because they live on Earth and are both mammals. I apologise to the pig for that comparison.

Watch this if theres nothing else to watch. Its currently on Netflix. Its not great but I am not paying any extra to watch it. Get a few drinks. It helps.

this is the worst movie i have ever seen. and i like the actor that directed this movie, he has been in some awesome movies. but maybe he should stick to acting, no offence. but i do mean offence though because this is literally the worst movie i have ever seen in my life, and I've seen superman 3. i don't understand how they could have made a movie so bad to be honest. I'm speechless. I'm speechless that there was a talented creative person at the helm of the worst movie i have ever literally seen in my life. this movie is only better than watching paint dry. whats wrong with it? everything. acting is the worst i have ever seen, the music is the worst i have ever heard, the cinematography, if you can call it that, is atrocious. and when i say the worst i have ever seen or heard, that is precisely what i mean here. watching this film is like watching a film on a high dose of acid, or when you try to watch TV after smoking copious amounts of crack. if you want to feel like you lost your mind, go ahead, watch this movie, it will give you a glimpse into what its like to be insane or on heavy dose of insanity inducing drugs. i am not joking at all, either.