This has nothing to do with Walt Disney’s 1979 The Black Hole. It’s actually a cheesy ‘00s SyFy Channel Original produced by Nu Image. As far as these things go, it’s not bad.
Judd Nelson is a scientist who drank his way out of a quantum physics thinktank. Naturally, when the lab creates a black hole that threatens St. Louis, his former flame and fellow scientist (Kristy Swanson) calls him in to find a way to stop it. Complicating matters is the appearance of an electricity monster that periodically escapes the black hole and vaporizes random security guards and other expendable personnel. Naturally, the military want to drop a nuclear bomb into the black hole (that’s their solution for everything), and it’s up to Judd and Kristy to save the day.
This has all the earmarks to be plodding junk, but director Tibor (The Gate) Takacs is able to inject a little momentum into the proceedings. I’m not saying he set the world on fire with this one, but it’s about what you would expect from the SyFy Channel at two in the afternoon on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Anyone expecting anything more from it should probably get their head examined. Then again, you should already know what you’re signing yourself up for when you see Kristy Swanson playing a quantum physicist.
The problems really rest at the script level. It’s almost as if the producers didn’t think the whole disaster movie idea of a black hole threatening a major city would sustain a two-hour time slot, so they penciled in the monster from another dimension just to hedge their bets. The creature is OK, I guess? He kind of looks like a cross between an invisible Predator and the electricity Gremlin from Gremlins 2, but he’s not exactly a worthy villain if Judd freakin’ Nelson can take him down. I did like the way he vaporized his victims a la Mars Attacks though.
In short, The Black Hole does suck, but not nearly as much as it might have.
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