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Katee Sackhoff stars in this sci-fi thriller with a low budget but lots of big ideas

Katee Sackhoff stars in this sci-fi thriller with a low budget but lots of big ideas.

Playing the mission controller of an unmanned AI mission to Mars, she spends most of the film's running time interacting with a coolly dispassionate artificial intelligence called ARTi. The name instantly recalls 2001, with its treacherous computer HAL, and so does the strange, seemingly alien monolith that has turned up on the Martian surface.

There are some interesting details floating around here, but the strained script doesn't really do them justice.

That said, British visual effects expert-turned-director Hasraf Dulull makes the most of his limited resources, while Sackhoff's sterling, largely solo performance holds our attention to the end.