Fight for Your Right to Hunt Crights!

"Critters, Crights!"

This simple utterance from the Other Bounty Hunter (not Ug who takes the form of 80's rocker Johnny Steele but the one with an identity crisis that keeps shape shifting) sums up the spirit of this tepid suit-up scene.

Critters. This is what humans call those perpetually hungry, rollie-pollie, escaped convicts from Prison Asteroid-Sector 17 maximum security holding facility. We call it like we see it: those things eating our cattle, killing our loved ones, shooting poisonous darts at us are low-down, surly critters. However, the term doesn't seem to embody the magnitude of the situation at hand.

Crights. This is what shape shifting, intergalactic Bounty Hunters call them. Said with the trace of an English accent; it resonates with authority. I invite you, right now, to try this out loud. Did you do it? No? If you did, you will most likely feel more sophisticated and dare I add more 'bad-ass' than someone who merely calls them critters. After all, they are Crights.

And that is the trouble with the scene: it tries to capture a sense of urgency, a sense of importance or authority...but comes off as a lazy, lackluster shrug. It should be a Crights scene but in essence is actually Critters. Like the bounty hunters; the scene isn't what it is supposed to be.

Zanti, the hover-pod bound warden of the asteroid prison, enlists the services of two jelly-faced bounty hunters to track down and destroy the escaped Crights. 'Get the bounty hunters', he gruffly commands.

The bounty hunters suit up. The first item inserted into their belts is a remote control device with a red LED on the front. This is a communicator of sorts (at the conclusion of the film, Ug says 'call us' and hands the remote to Brad Brown, played with golly-gosh zeal by Scott Grimes) but also rebuilds houses with the push of a button. SPOILER DIGRESSION ALERT: The single greatest moment of the film is when the Critt-- er, Crights are escaping Earth in their ship, the pilot lingers over the Brown house and fires a direct hit, blowing it to smithereens. That Cright's reaction, a plosive burst of smart-ass laughter, is the film's finest beat of performance. Back to the suiting up: 80's looking leather studded vests are pulled on, belts are strapped, a single knife is slipped into an ankle holster. It is underwhelming. In no way does this convey preparation for a mission across the galaxy to assassinate blood thirsty criminals for pay.

All the close ups are by the book. The most unique aspect of this suit-up would be the plasma cannon -- which is barely focused on -- it is only seen once and I didn't even include a screen shot because you cannot discern what you're looking at. If they assembled it, or loaded it, or did something kinetic with it; it may have been a stronger moment, rather than a close up of the barrel retracting and quickly being obscured from sight.

The opportunity for a memorable suit-up scene was poorly handled by the director who would later helm Mr. Holland's Opus and Young MacGyver. Young MacGyver? Maybe he redeems his suiting up credibility there....