Spaceship (2016) User Reviews

It's a really ambitious student film...

[sventempest · 3/10 · 19 January 2019]

...but it seems to meander from "character" to "character" with no real rhyme or reason. Fragmented to the point that it asserts a deeper meaning without ever actually seizing upon that deeper meaning. Visually interesting, but the narrative is confused by what it wants to be.

There was clearly passion behind it, but passion alone doesn't make for a coherent or engaging story. It relies very heavily on voice overs that have this thematic constant of flight, better worlds, non humans or transcended humans...but all these threads, all these hooks...they never really tie together into anything. Yes, a film shouldn't always spoonfeed you answers, but there's a world of difference between leaving things open to interpretation and making an incoherent mess.

This falls somewhere between the two. Never fully terrible enough to be a mess yet so vague that it straddles incoherence and repeats itself often. You keep trying to piece together the mystery it feels like it's presenting, but before long you realise that is an exercise in futility. Worse still is that despite how clever it thinks it may be, it commits the single greatest cardinal sin a movie can commit. It's boring. Pretentious I can sometimes enjoy, but pretentious and boring not so much.

Send this "Spaceship" far, far away

[jtncsmistad · 4/10 · 25 November 2017]

Was she actually abducted by aliens? For the love of Carl Sagan I have no idea.

Here's what I do know. The new British indy "Spaceship" is among the most meaningless and morose masses of melancholia ever mish-mashed into a movie. Good GOSH these psych drug saturated sad sacks would make a damn dirge seem downright delightful.

Hey Alex Taylor. It would appear you had lofty intentions whilst scripting and directing this catastrophic calamity. But in the end all you managed to muster is a miserable malaise of avant-garde posturing and pretense blown balistically out of proportion.

Or more fittingly, out of this, or any other, UNIVERSE.

Flatliners

[frukuk · 3/10 · 17 January 2019]

Deeply unaffecting.

A film populated by vegan vampires (look, no blood!) and apathetic zombies. The only reason aliens would abduct any of this lot, is to have a jolly good laugh at them (and I'm sure aliens wouldn't be that mean).

Like watching grass grow, but without the narrative flow

[jrgibson-51931 · 1/10 · 16 January 2019]

Another 'masterpiece; from BBC Films and the BFI. I have learned to expect boring, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual garbage when the logos of these two organisations appear in the opening credits and this 'epic' falls right into that category. If the director/auteur wanted to present a picture of teenagers today, he could have made a more entertaining piece by planting a static camera in a school cafeteria for an hour and a half - it would at least eliminate the 'arty' images and nonsense plot. It;s proof of your optimism that it will get better if you manage to endure the full 90 minutes of this incoherent rubbish. If you are considering watching this film, I would suggest finding some grass and watching it grow for 90 minutes instead.

Pretty to look at but empty.

[imgreatme · 2/10 · 17 October 2016]

Caught this as LFF the other week. It's pretty awful. I think it's meant to be some revelatory insight into teen culture but there's no depth to any of the characters - they're just mouthpieces for the director's pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-philosophical stream of conscience stuff. There's not much of a plot - a girl possibly gets abducted by aliens - but the film doesn't have the guts to pursue that with any real intelligence. The writer/director introduced the film and seemed to think that the film was "really weird" and we should "embrace the strangeness", but I think there's a difference between being cleverly strange like Aronofsky or Korine to create an emotional response, versus whatever this is where the filmmaker seems to think that going on about unicorns and rainbows equates to enough depth to sustain the audiences interest. It doesn't. I will say that it looks very nice, there's a sequence at a party with day-glow neon make-up that looks great - but looking great isn't enough. The actors are interesting and some of them have real presence, it's just a shame they're forced to speak the rubbish dialogue.

Stoner Film Students Just Do Nothing

[SinnerStar · 1/10 · 18 January 2019]

This film has the look and feel as if some film students had numerous ideas for what they thought would be great psychedelic set pieces and then tried to cobble them together with a very,very thin storyline about a father trying to find his missing daughter.

There are numerous secondary storyline arcs (an archaeological dig, a teenage vampire and a dominatrix and her slave) that make no sense around these set pieces that are accompanied by terrible synthesiser music and lots of slow motion of youngsters dancing, being high and chatting utter rubbish.

Looking at the only adult in this film and essentially the person who holds the plotline together, the father, he teeters precariously on the borderline of caring father and middle aged pervert.

Film is an artform and just because you put hi-glow paint on the actors does not make this film art !

Pretty Pointless

[Jaymz13 · 2/10 · 23 December 2022]

Contains: No Spaceships No Blackholes No Unicorns No Rainbows No Alien Abductions Aimless and Angsty Teens MDMA

The scene where the one girl painted a black spot on her bedroom wall, had me waiting for her friend to try running through it like Wile E. Coyote through a tunnel painted on a cliff. At least that would've provided some much needed comic relief.

The dialogue wasn't even like real people talking.

"I thought about mom today." "Yeah. Taffy is delicious." "I like snorkling." "Okay. Let's take your motorcycle."

And just on and on. "Actors" spouting random disconnected sentences while looking at each other "meaningfully." The Liberty Mutual, door dash, and Amazon commercials that popped up during the breaks were cinematic genius by comparison.

I've seen worse, but not by much, and it's been a long time. 2 stars. Barely.

Nothing really matters...

[johnpmoseley · 3/10 · 4 September 2020]

...at least, not in this film, in which a lot of pretty visual and verbal ideas float around without ever finding a purpose.

Full transparency: I met the writer/director Alex Taylor in the Tin Café in Hackney shortly after he completed this. He seemed a lovely guy, thoughtful and unassuming, so I really wanted to like his film.

And I nearly did. It pulled off enough early on with its punky kids talking mock confident nonsense and grungy camera-work that I genuinely perked up. But I was flagging by the middle and even a little irritated as it wore on. There is a redemption arc, but it is not earned; there is a theme - of escape to another world - which is hammered too relentlessly and without enough narrative justification to weave any kind of spell; there are decently drawn characters who go nowhere; there is even a sort of twist, but it is not surprising.

Still, hopefully all the potential presages something better from Taylor. And I'd say anyone interested in low-budget UK filmmaking should see this. It appears to indicate a funder openness to interesting approaches, and, at the same time, well, the bar doesn't seem set that high. Surely someone with a decent script can come along and knock one into this open goal? OK, good scripts - that's the hard part. Still...

Beautiful, dreamy and colourful film

[charlierichardson2000 · 7/10 · 1 September 2017]

The film is a sensitive, beautiful, dreamy and colourful look at teenage identity, sad at times, funny at other times. I laughed at one of the poems. It features good music - a grunge mixed ethereal sound and the young actors were believable. Overall it's a good debut and impressive talent.

Nonsensical Drivel

[lilyloo-79807 · 1/10 · 18 July 2022]

I can't think of anything positive to say about this pile of clap trap. Nothing flowed or connected. Dull as wet week.

I'm struggling to write 150 characters I was so uninspired & bored that my brain melted and left me unable to leave an adequately lengthy review that no one will read anyway.

Amazing film!

[maxsandro-27766 · 10/10 · 27 July 2018]

I saw this film on Amazon and it was a total surprise. It's not like any other film I've seen. It really feels like the filmmaker tried to tell the teenagers stories with their own voice, not with their own. I wish more films were like this!

Weird and kind of wonderful

[y_b_normal · 7/10 · 12 May 2017]

A singular vision from a talented first time director, Spaceship journeys into the minds and souls of a group of teens in suburban Britain. Writer-director Alex Taylor takes a genre title, subverts it with a low-key premise, only to defy any and all expectations with a psychedelic head trip of a film, full of distinctive characters and faux-philosophical musings. A unique tone, expressive visuals and a knockout emotional finale keep things moving when the film threatens to meander into eternity.

Cute and confused

[ConvitHouse · 7/10 · 17 July 2022]

When Lucidia, orphaned after her mother drowned herself in the pool, disappears, she just might have been abducted by aliens, and so her goth friends set out to find her - that is to say, they party, experiment with drugs and vampirism, and have long philosophical conversations about what might have occurred. Aptly described as trippy, Spaceship has little narrative drive, but does manage to evoke the emotional disconnection of teenagers who long for experiences that the grim garrison town of Aldershot does not offer.

There are some fine performances from the teens, Tallulah Haddon and Lara Peake in particular, who capture their characters' goofiness and sadness and inspire some sympathy for their disconnected lives. There are also some beautiful set pieces, notably the fairground scene where they party in fluorescent makeup. Far from being pretentious, their deadpan discussions of alien abduction can be quite funny, as the characters are anything but down to earth. At times, there is a welcome restraint: the one or two sexual encounters are merely implied, as befits the emotional ambiguity in the relationships portrayed.

With its imaginary unicorns and black holes, this could have been a work of beguiling fantasy, but the adult characters are lacklustre (intentionally?) and some of the arty scenes, in which the youngsters dance strangely while gazing soulfully into the camera, are just embarrassing. While it does not matter so much that the dialogue sometimes makes no sense, it, and the cinematography, could have been better crafted, and the writer/director could have done just a little research: archaeology does not involve two blokes with garden spades digging a big pit in a forest - but it all adds to the weirdness.

Despite its faults, Spaceship drew me into its weird world, and I expect better from Alex Taylor in future.

Compellingly different

[BigFaceArt · 9/10 · 31 August 2017]

Watched this film without knowing much about it at the cinema, and was inspired by its fresh approach to filmmaking... It took me somewhere cool and mysterious... Been thinking about it for a while. Something quite David lynch about it... And easy on the eye and ear... I often find films nowadays about young people feel really exaggerated and somewhat unsettling, but this one has an authentic sensibility about it i really liked.... Something i haven't seen the cool linklater and larry clark 90s stuff... I liked it.

Welcome onboard people

[abtin_rn · 9/10 · 1 September 2017]

A refreshing take on youth-hood in modern Britain which pictures human as they are without any prejudice. A humble rock song in the shape of a movie which can entertain a mass open-minded crowd without too much screaming or shouting! In my opinion the art of film making is about storytelling. Well, Alex Taylor has mastered the story of 21st century human onboard of our crazy spaceship. The Spaceship is like me and you;sometimes charming, sometimes cruel but everyone are welcome onboard. Life is too short but the teenagers' life seems to go on forever on the Spaceship moving from past to the future. Welcome onboard people.

Hallucinogenic Imagination and unicorns and maybe aliens...

[comingsooner · 8/10 · 31 August 2017]

Went to see Alex Taylor's debut feature "Spaceship" in Brixton as part of the festival in early October 2016, and a phenomenal afternoon it turned out to be, indeed. Sadly, had to leave before the Q&A session after the end of the screening. Everybody in the auditorium looked well up for it!

A dazzling, touching film about being a different kind of teenager

[jamiewolpert · 10/10 · 1 September 2017]

Spaceship is a hidden gem of a film - a lyrical, semi-improvised film about cos-playing teens lost in a sea of angst and self-obsession. However, the film manages to avoid any sense of patronising the teenage experience or of indulging nostalgia in what it's like to be young.

Like early Greg Araki, the film feels not just about teens but *by* teens, with a visual flair and a voice that feels authentic and sympathetic. The film captures beautifully the feeling of being simultaneously stuck where you've always been while also feeling so lost you might never be found.

The visuals and music are superb and the young cast deliver understated, powerful performances. It's an unusual film for some, but it serves an audience that mainstream cinema can't reach.

Magical teenage realism

[freya-53338 · 8/10 · 1 September 2017]

A challenging, unexpected meander through teenage eyes. Both hallucinatory and strangely down to earth. Genuinely unique magical viewing with a cast who feel absolutely recognisable in their disengagement with the world around them. Spaceship is a development from Alex Taylors wonderful short film Lilly Goes to Kiss Land.

Some brilliant, spine-tingling moments

[matt-mdt · 9/10 · 9 August 2018]

An original piece from a promising director with some brilliant, spine-tingling moments and a perfectly matched soundtrack. It has a free form style aka Gummo, following teenagers and their weird and wonderful fantasies. Some scenes jar a little but if you accept them as part of the free-form style and recognise that in totality it's a collection of moments - you can just start to enjoy the experience for what it is: unlike pretty much any other film about teenagers out there. I recommend it if you like your films a bit different from the rest.

It isn't a story but there is life within

[henri-26842 · 8/10 · 12 June 2023]

Spaceship covers issues of drugs, parenthood, mental health, teenage culture and rebellion, death, and life. Though many say that the movie is hollow and doesn't fit their pitch of a story about a father trying to find his daughter, I find this claim inaccurate. I believe he finds out who his daughter is and grows more able to have a relationship with her, and that is finding his daughter. We see a man struggling and a world struggling and find empathy and understanding. Despite objectively little happening, the world can end over nothings when you are a teenager and though it is just their lives there are giant emotions, complex relationships and high tensions. The abstract nature and the poetry creates something you wish to devour and may leave some hollow and with unanswered questions... but I fear that might be the point as we fear for their futures, worry over trival empty things and cannot connect to any fully- we feel as the characters do. It makes us want to find out more in real life and apply the lessons and our new found fears or acceptance that our fears are average into the real world and that is a good thing. It may keep you wondering for years but it is beautiful and sweet and stunning and an experience.