400 Days - Movie Review

Details: By Loron Hays; 15 January 2016

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There is something powerful when science fiction goes into B-movie mode and sneaks up on audiences with head-spinning moments and WTF endings. There’s a free-spirited agent driving these movies that gets them outside of the influence of the big studios and they hold up remarkably well. Movies like Them!, The Blob, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, A Boy and His Dog, and Silent Running are exactly the type of classic low-budget flicks I’m referring to and I dare anyone to suggest that they don’t hold up.

Unfortunately, as interesting its premise of four astronauts on a mentally daunting simulation is, 400 Days – a quite thriller opening in limited release this weekend – is not one of those B-movies that can or should be championed. Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of Twilight Zone-like potential discovered throughout this mostly one-setting flick but most of it goes unclaimed. It’s as if the best bits are merely accidental and not purposeful.

Written and directed by Matt Osterman for the Syfy channel’s theatrical division, 400 Days is an attempt at slow burn as four astronauts (Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, Dane Cook and Ben Feldman) get assigned for a government experiment measuring the long-term effects of extended space travel. Personalities and past histories are revealed as the gang of four go deep underground and begin to experience sensations akin to space travel solely. Have they really gone somewhere? Is this really an experiment?

As the paranoia grows, so too does the tension until a breaking point is reached as the team decides to open the hatch and return to the surface. The game has gone on too long but what they find to greet them only prolongs their mutual misery. Suddenly, the entire mission is questioned.

This is a movie that throws a lot of ideas out but is content to merely see if they stick or not. Nothing truly develops and nothing truly is answered. It is more frustrating than it is clever and, trust me, the potential to be a remarkable slow burn of an independent science fiction flick is indeed there…which makes the results of 400 Days so disappointing.

Lotz and Routh are both solid leads but the characters they inhibit are weakly constructed. It’s even worse for the other two paper-thin astronauts. Routh is still every bit the alien persona of his Superman Returns achievement (he deserved another shot, if you ask me) and Cook, who is usually obnoxious, has put on weight and sells his role as the mischievous questioner at odds with the environment around him. Yet, nothing impactful happens.

While I love the b-movie spirit associated with productions like this, I don’t see any real reason to waste time with 400 Days.

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MPAA Rating: N/A.
Runtime: 91 mins
Director: Matt Osterman
Writer: Matt Osterman
Cast: Brandon Routh, Dane Cook, Caity Lotz
Genre: Sci-fi | mystery
Tagline: Time to Kill
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor: XLrator Media
Official Site:
Release Date: January 15, 2016
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: 400 Days centers on four astronauts sent on a simulated mission to a distant planet to test the psychological effects of deep space travel. Locked away for 400 days, the crew's mental state begins to deteriorate when they lose all communication with the outside world. Forced to exit the ship, they discover that this mission may not have been a simulation after all.