“Perhaps you erred when you overrode my human sanctity programming?”

Justin’s rating: Nothing here is jacked whatsoever

Justin’s review: I’ve come to the realization that, for the most part, I’ve exhausted the field of ’90s scifi movies — at least the A- and B-list titles. But there are always lesser tiers of quality, if you don’t mind lowering your standards, and down near the stowage decks is a little title called Spacejacked.

Spacejacked takes place on the Ocean Princess, a luxury cruise ship taking about two dozen people to the moon. It’s not that impressive of a ship, to be honest; there’s only a lounge, a hallway, and a barebones bridge. Heck, there’s barely an attempt to hide the fact that everyone uses those curvy CRT monitors and IBM keyboards.

A shifty android named Gibson and the ship’s second mate Barnes (Corbin Bernsen, Major League) use technology to take over the ship to hold its billionaires ransom. It’s up to one of the officers and a contest winner named Dawn (Amanda Pays, Leviathan) to protect the passengers and thwart Barnes. You know what movie template we’re working off of here, so I’m not even going to grace it with a comparison.

Besides, any comparison to any other movie is going to do Spacejacked far more harm than good. Everything in this TV movie looks cheap, from the sets to the computer screens to the outfits. When the actual spacejacking happens, everyone throws themselves at the sets while chunks of foam fall down from the ceiling in a most un-starship-like way. Then the lights turn off so the director doesn’t have to show that much for a while, and we spend too much time with whiny, petty passengers.

And if you thought you could retreat into the soundtrack, you’re out of luck, because the composer elected for — and I’m not kidding — improvisational jazz. Jazz. For an action thriller in space. It’s certainly a choice, and it results in many scenes sounding like they’re old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Padding out the runtime are some VR segments that mean nothing other than opportunities for pointless nudity. Because when you’re on a spacejacked cruiser with only hours left to live, might as well escape reality!

What else are we left with? Sadly, it’s Corbin Bernsen chewing the scenery as the villain. When he’s not randomly yelling or screaming at his android minion, he’s dancing in his chair and chomping on a cigar. None of it is going to make you wistfully exclaim, “Man, I need to binge a Corbin Bernsen marathon this weekend!” Honestly, this amount of exposure to his cheesy acting will probably give you a mild rash.

Spacejacked has nothing for you. It has nothing for anyone. And the real tragedy is that I had to pay three bucks to rent this piece of interstellar garbage, which means that Corbin Bernsen or his estate just got a confusing 13 cents of royalty payment in the mail from some idiot.

Intermission!

• It’s the space lounge where the plants get out of your way when you come into the room
• The opening credits font does not fit
• And now a… knee contest?
• Androids can read your ID jewelry to call you by your name
• Pushing virtual reality pretty hard there. We must be in the ’90s.
• Contest winners can barge onto the bridge and sit down at the controls to fiddle around with them. It’s OK, she pilots on her PC all the time.
• Cavemen like to lick your face in VR
• Why would you want to do VR right in the middle of a lounge? Oh, because it’s one of three sets, that’s why.
• “What’s the meaning of that countdown?”
• “Oh Mac, you’re my favorite android!”
• Barnes doing some chair-dancing
• They yank out Mac’s eyeball to reprogram his brain but don’t change that terrible haircut?
• MAC… IN… SPACE!
• If you’re going to stab an android, scream really loudly and run all the way from the other side of the room so it has the time to snap your neck.