Stasis – Release Date: 4th July 2017

With poor characterisation, wooden acting and an incoherent, convoluted story, its hard to recommend this one even to the most die hard sci-fi fan. The concept itself is a nice idea in theory and you can see what angle they were going for -an action-driven time travel flick with frenetic action and a jumping perspective between the past and future but Stasis doesn’t hit the mark.

The story starts in 2067. Two figures stagger through a barren, rocky wasteland as gusts of wind kick dust in their face. They’re walking toward a rebel base. Once there, they’re immediately told they need to head back in time to save the future from annihilation. After being thrust back in time, the film changes its focus to Ava, a girl who finds her own body hijacked by one of the time travelling agents from the future. As the two agents from the future set out to save the past, Ava is left wandering around like a ghost, jumping between characters whilst fights break out with the rebels in 2067 as another group tries to take over the base. If this sounds hard to follow, that’s because it is. It takes a solid hour before anything is really explained and even when it is, its so haphazardly done it hardly seems worth the wait. I found myself asking “yeah but…why?” for most of this film as little explanation is given and no clear motivation for each character as they stumble from one scene to the next

I mentioned before about wooden acting and despite growing into their roles late on in the film, the cast feel robotic, void of real emotion and deliver their lines in such a way that none of them feel like they want to be there. Of course there are exceptions, some of the later lines of the script are okay but it arrives so late it hardly feels worth waiting for, especially since the film ends with an open ending, failing to resolve the initial conflict to leave it open for an improbable sequel.

It would be unfair of me to continue into a long rant about how many things are wrong with this film but sometimes its easy to overlook if there’s a redeeming feature. Stasis has none. Its unresolved conflict is frustrating and for long periods of the film I constantly had to ask myself whether I missed something early on. Its confusing story does not lend itself any favours, there’s barely any characterisation and the acting is just poor. Its hard to even recommend this on a “so bad its hilarious” level like Sharknado and other B movies. Ultimately, Stasis fails on every conceivable level and is regrettably one of the worst films I’ve seen in a very long time.