It’s probably only fair to preface this review with the confession that I generally despise sci-fi flicks and anything related to them. I saw Star Wars when I was 11 and that was probably the highpoint of my interest in the genre. I also have a strong aversion to anything with Dean Cain as a featured player. There’s something blandly annoying about the bastard and his thoroughly wooden acting chops. His rotten tenure in primetime as “Superman” was one of the true low points of the ‘90s, and that’s saying something. Cain somehow brings a booming mediocrity to any project he touches–and “Final Encounter” is no exception. He effortlessly cheapens the entire culture every time he strolls onscreen.
I couldn’t really decipher just what the hell this movie was about. But I guess it was something to the effect that a couple warring factions of humans on a far-flung planet are close to annihilating each other when Super-Spam decides to step in and make things all better. Yes, he’s the chief warhawk for one side—which shows you right there that their military program was hopelessly f****d up. In the end, though, Super-Ham ends up to be a lying prick, and his own elite fighting unit of bad actors turns on him and the tough-jawed milquetoast goes down like a sack of s**t. Cain looks rather pained through this whole ordeal, like he’s busy thinking, “I’m going to kill Ben Affleck—then I’ll be the top no-talent pretty boy/buffoon in Hollywood again!”
Apparently, we’re supposed to be knocked-out by the ultra-pissah special fx in this sub-Star Trek yawnfest. Not me. It was exactly like an overlong “special episode” of some crappy TV show about outer space on the idiotbox. Which is really where Cain and his ilk belong.
