SPACE FURY (1999)
“Space Fury,” a 1999 Canadian sci-fi thriller directed by Eli Necakov, follows a tense standoff aboard a joint U.S.-Russian space station after a shuttle crash leaves four astronauts stranded. Michael Paré stars as Konrad, a volatile cosmonaut secretly brainwashed by terrorists to sabotage the mission. Alongside him are Rene (Lisa Bingley), a skilled but enigmatic crew member, Yuri (Nenad Petrovic), a stoic Russian, and Tony (Tony Curtis Blondell), a celebrity golfer whose presence baffles everyone. The crash, initially deemed an accident, unravels as deliberate when Konrad’s erratic behavior—culminating in knife-wielding outbursts—reveals his programming to crash the station into Los Angeles.
Shot on a shoestring budget, the film leans on claustrophobic interiors and a sparse cast to build suspense, though its ambition outstrips its execution. The station’s dated CGI exteriors and Radio Shack-esque sets scream ’90s B-movie, while the plot juggles a terrorist conspiracy and Konrad’s descent into madness. Rene emerges as an unlikely hero, her martial arts prowess clashing with Konrad in a series of scrappy fights, though her sudden skill shifts puzzle more than they impress. Yuri’s quiet resolve and Tony’s bewildered quips add fleeting depth, but the script—penned by Vincent Monton—stumbles with turgid dialogue and half-baked subplots, like Rene’s murky romance.
The climax delivers a fiery payoff: Konrad’s sabotage sends the station spinning toward Earth, ablaze like a cartwheel, as Rene and Tony escape in a shuttle. Critics trashed its wooden acting and wobbly narrative—IMDB rates it a dismal 2.4—but Paré’s unhinged energy and the sheer lunacy of a golf pro in space propel it into “so-bad-it’s-good” territory. Donald Quan’s score offers surprising polish to this bargain-bin oddity, a cult curiosity for trash-cinema diehards craving unpolished sci-fi schlock.
