Cosmic Sin
Does this even really qualify as a film?
Writing the plot synopsis seems relatively pointless for Cosmic Sin, because a comprehensible or indeed sensical plot is nowhere to be found in this absolute travesty of a film. Bruce Willis’ James Ford has seemingly committed some sort of genocide for reasons unknown, yet is roped back into the military he was expunged from when this space-faring futuristic humanity encounters a hostile alien force. He teams up with General Ryle (Frank Grillo), Ryle’s nephew Braxton Ryle (Brandon Thomas Lee), and his long-time friend Dash (Corey Large), among others, to launch a pre-emptive strike on the alien civilisation and wipe them out. Or at least, that is what the movie purports to be about.
You see, Cosmic Sin is one of the worst movies made this year, this decade, and even in the entire history of cinema. It’s the sort of movie that would make an 1800’s George Melies burn every piece of footage he ever shot. This is absolute garbage.
Let’s start with the plot (so far as it is). The film gives us a group of heroes who have not only previously committed war crimes and genocide, but the whole thing we’re rooting for is for them to do it once again. We eventually get a monologue from an alien that shows they are up to no good, but that is well over ¾ of the way into the film - up until then, these guys are just looking to straight up murder a species. We also have no real reasoning as to why they have to get James Ford involved again, why they won’t speak to the government in charge, why a group of infected individuals are brought onto a base, why they attack some other planet, or indeed why anything happens. Explanation is entirely foregone in this movie, which is odd because so much of it is exposition about nothing. It feels like the editor cut together the film, and then just removed every second scene. Scenes are shoehorned in that just make no sense. You’ll sit there screaming things like “where did this child come from”, “where are the rest of the characters”, “why is that person here”, and much more. It’s utterly impossible to follow the story in this movie, and that makes it both contemptible and frustrating.
The visuals are also truly terrible. This is some of the worst CGI you will see this millennium. From the ridiculous suits they wear when flying through outer space, to the terribly composited explosions, it is laughable that anyone thought this was OK. The dialogue, too, is horrid. It’s like a random number generator plucked phrases and smashed them together to create this script. Characters say either cliche garbage, or sentences and phrases that just make absolutely no sense.
That being said, the most egregious part of this film is far and away the acting. Willis and Grillo both turn in the worst performances of their career in this absolutely dogshit movie. Willis in particular has not only given up trying, but has gone the other way entirely - actively derailing this film by delivering the worst possible line reading in every single scene.
