Fans of Blake's Seven would probably think of the opening episode of their favourite TV show being inspiration for the opening shots of New Eden, 1994 science fiction film directed by Alan Metzger. The film begins with huge spaceship that carries prisoners to distant planet that serves as a prison colony. Upon arrival on the desert planet called Earth 21-523, the prisoners are unceremoniously dumped and left to fend for themselves. Most fall prey to the bandits or try to join their ranks, but young idealistic engineer Adams (played by Stephen Baldwin) chooses another path and tries to improve life of small nomadic tribe by showing them benefits of irrigation. Such efforts would, however, lead to the conflict with some of his former friends.
New Eden is made with small budget, but it starts looking really cheap only when we realise that the distant alien planet is desert-like not only to due to the lacking budget, but also due to the lacking creativity of their makers. After a brief intro, New Eden starts resembling multitudes of cheap post-apocalyptic action films made in 1980s after success of Mad Max. The impression is even worse when we take into account Escape from Absalom, similar futuristic prison movie that had the decency of employing somewhat different setting. However, Dan Gordon's script manages to overcome at least some post-apocalyptic cliches – the protagonist is idealistic intellectual instead of Rambo-like killing machine, and Stephen Baldwin seems more suitable for playing the former type of characters. Another bright spot in this film is Tobin Bell in rather interesting role, so different from many psychopaths and villains he had to play during his career. But his efforts would won't improve the general impression of this film. Although not among the worst example, New Eden is one of those cheap science fiction films that often give bad name to the entire genre.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on July 10th 2001)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/215760-new-eden?language=en-US
Critic: A
