Two
astronauts are going where no man has ever gone before, but it might not count
for much if they have gone insane by the time they get there. They might be
losing their handle on reality, but reality is maybe also turning against them
in Thomas Zellen’s Beyond the Edge (trailer here), which is now
available on VOD.
You
might wonder why a marine biologist like Dr. Abe Anderson was chosen for this
mission. Granted, he keeps a tank full of electric eels, but the bee colony
ought to be somewhat outside his field of expertise. At least giving up his
disappointing personal life was not such a sacrifice. Conversely, Lt. Col.
Harold Richards looks like a logical choice to pilot the mission, but he will
probably never see his tightly-knit family again as a result. He has Anderson
for company, but that will be cold comfort when they both go nuts and he maybe
dies (don’t worry, its not permanent, or maybe it is).
As
their ship approaches the “edge” of the universe, time and reality start to fragment
and reshuffle. Incidents seem to replay out of sequence and alternate realities
start to intrude on the ostensive real one—or so we might surmise. The
frustrating thing about Edge is that
Zellen clearly has a lot of heady ideas, but he doesn’t always get them over
on-screen. His ambition is noble, but his fractured narrative can be trying.
Nevertheless,
Casper Van Dien (still best known for Starship
Troopers) really is terrific as Lt. Col. Richards. He truly looks the part
of a ramrod-straight military man—and it is surprisingly poignant to watch him
cling to structure and routine as he starts to understand how profoundly they
have lost control of their mission. However, Sean Maher is so annoyingly
obnoxious as Anderson, we’d really just assume Richards put the hurt on him.
