Space Trucker Bruce is a gem I never thought I would spend 1 hour and 26 minutes of my life on. I watched it with a friend, who I thought would make that time more worthwhile. Alas, no.
This movie is an absolutely astonishingly horrible. I have nothing against the actors, producer, or writers. I feel it would be unfair to critique their abilities in said fields, since the work they've put out places them somewhere in the middle school age range.
The jokes in this movie pander to adults with little to no humor aside from "haha funny sex," or "lol he make funny face." If you were to enjoy the jokes in this film, I would assume you were either a victim of Lele Pons era Vine, or you were 12 years old.
Personally, I have qualms with the portrayal of insanity and learning disabilities within this movie. Towards the beginning, when Bruce first picks Max up, he is portrayed as someone who has not interacted with anyone in a long time, and does not know how to. His tendencies can be described as creepy, inhumane, and even intrusive. Max is clearly uneasy because of this, as seen in the board game scene. However, not much later in the movie, Bruce's supposed "insanity" seems to dissipate, or rather, the writers entirely forgot it was there in the first place. Bruce's said mental instability seems to be played off as a quick and cheap gimmick, for laughs at the Funny Way he looks over Max's shoulder. As such, it comes off as insensitive and rather unfunny. The acting doesn't do the script any justice, either. It's clear that everyone involved thought they were masters of the art of theater, similarly to children writing storybooks in their free time. I recommend acting classes, or any amount of effort.
The voice acting is horrendous as well. I could not, for the life of me, stand Mr (and later Miss) Sour Cream. They sound like Salad Fingers if Salad Fingers had asthma and a bad sense of humor. The movie had a trope in which Max had (seemingly) begun to go insane and hear Mr. Sour Cream's voice. This could have been a good gateway into a sort of American Psycho-esque commentary. The movie could have gone into how Max is experiencing these inanimate objects telling him to do horrible things, when in reality it's just him going crazy, but the movie had no interest in pursuing anything even remotely entertaining. On top of that, the experience of Mr. Sour Cream coercing the main characters into horrible actions was never brought up again. Mr. Sour Cream seems to be an entirely arbitrary character, among others.
The characters are a whole other can of beans. I've already spoken about my issues with Max and Bruce, but to summarize, I don't appreciate the "insanity" ploy for laughs. Bruce is also a huge jackass, which is not the greatest thing to be when you're the protagonist. His objectification of women in the movie is something that's played off as "haha relatable," but is actually rude and misogynistic. He spends a good majority of his time looking at porn, fantasizing about taken women, and being a slob. I find his obsession with Katie to be rather 16th century, so to speak. He thinks of her as simply a prize to be won, not a breathing human being with desires of her own. He even kisses her while she has a boyfriend, as if she weren't in a committed relationship, and assumes she'd be okay with it. Bruce also straight up kidnaps a dead girl, and continually makes jokes about using her sexually. He also fully intends on doing so, despite her being DEAD and NOT ALIVE. He only seems to revive her because Max said that'd be a good thing to do.
Jane Doe as a character is completely unimportant. She does nothing for the plot or for the other characters except drop some sewage on another ship and maybe give Bruce a boner or two. The moment she was brought back to life, I was concerned they'd use her as the mentally challenged character, which they did. I do not appreciate the use of her clear mental stress as a quick laugh. It seems they were trying to imply that she was handicapped in some way. Funny how Bruce didn't seem to be interested in her after that... hm.
The plot of the movie, from the very beginning, was unclear. I had no idea what the end goal was, or when this would end, and God why won't this end? The movie was so drawn out, and kept creating different plots that I felt like I was watching the Fast and Furious movies, out of order, on 5 times speed, but also at .001 times speed because jesus christ. The feeling you feel when you see how long this review is can be compared to the feeling I felt when looking at the watch time bar being only 1/3 of the way through on this movie. Except tenfold.
From my understanding, Bruce's end goal was to deliver the hog fat. That's all fine and dandy, but what's this? He goes on a side quest to pick up Max. No worries. But for some reason, there's a whole training montage about Max learning to accept the simplicity of space? To which Max has no response to. I figured this would be the place that the writers could insert some character development, but by the next scene Max is bored again! So he's ultimately learned nothing and that entire 30 minute arch was for nothing! Then, there's distress signals. I thought, at this point, the movie would finally pick up. I was wrong. They go on this large abandoned ship, and for what? That sexdoll Bruce wanted? The ship itself does not play into the plot whatsoever, and could easily be a plot point that the writers skipped entirely. My brain was so fried at this point that I don't recall any other plot points. Though, knowing the writing, there may not have been any others.
Max, Bruce, and Jane Doe finally arrive at the station (for which I cannot recall the name). They supposedly have to stay for a month due to repairs, but I couldn't tell that any time had passed between the station scene and the next ship scene. Plus, what was the point? I assume they completed their hog fat mission, but I wouldn't know for sure because they didn't focus on it at all! Therefore, the main conflict was not resolved, and I don't know why I sat through this entire movie! It seems all the trio went to the station to do was allow Bruce to pick up the taken girl of his dreams.
And then there's a whole other plot point left unexplored. I have no clue if this was a set up for a sequel or a complete fluke on the writers' behalf. The fact that it wasn't clear doesn't do a lot in this movie's favor. And I hope to God there isn't a sequel, because I will lose my mind.
Overall, this movie was a disaster. I will not criticize the production or set quality of the film, as I understand it was created on a budget. I do think, however, to overlook those factors and still enjoy the movie, you must be used to leaving movie theaters with less braincells than when you entered.
I do not recommend watching this movie. I, in fact, do plan on making a video essay on it. However, I completely and utterly dread going back into the movie to even gather clips of it.
I hope you never remake this film, it's a bad premise with bad writing, and no amount of production value can fix that.
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