Although Breach was shot in fall 2019, the Bruce Willis film opens with the eerily timely vision of a world ravaged by a plague. It's the year 2242, and humanity is in the final stage of abandoning Earth, which can no longer sustain them, to begin anew on a faraway planet that's been not-so-imaginatively dubbed "New Earth." Among those aboard the last spaceship headed to humankind's new home are its crew, including a young janitor named Noah (Cody Kearsley) and his crusty co-worker Clay (Willis), and a most unwelcome stowaway in the form of a shape-shifting parasitic alien. What ensues is a pulpy film that borrows liberally from the most famous sci-fi action/horror titles of all time, but partly makes up for its lack of genuine thrills by being somewhat aware of just how silly it is.
While the Breach poster might have you believe Willis and Thomas Jane are the movie's stars, it's Kearsley who gets the spotlight. Having secretly snuck aboard the spaceship, Noah takes the place of another crew member, in the hopes of starting a life with his pregnant girlfriend Hayley (Kassandra Clementi) on New Earth. Jane, who plays the ship's gruff Admiral and Hayley's father, barks a few commands at his crew before shuffling off to spend the rest of the six-month trip to this new world in cryogenic sleep, along with Hayley and the other 300,000 passengers. That leaves Noah, Clay and their peers to pass the time by keeping their vessel spick and span, playing cards, or just getting drunk and high.
The crew's monotonous existence for the next three months, which will be all the more relatable to everyone after living through 2020, gives them a chance to bond with one another. Meanwhile, their Commander Stanley (Timothy V. Murphy) is concerned that there may be rebels onboard who want to sabotage the ship, believing that humanity doesn't deserve a second chance. Of course, those worries get moved to the back-burner when a mysterious alien begins infecting crew members by liquifying their organs and wearing their bodies like suits, turning them into zombie-style beings with black goo dripping out of their mouths.
For anyone who's seen an Alien movie or The Thing, Breach will hold few surprises and mostly come across as a cheap knockoff of those franchises, between its contained setting and blue-collar heroes. The further along it goes, the more Breach crosses the line from paying homage to those films to blatantly ripping off their most iconic elements with diminished returns, particularly The Thing's legendarily grotesque practical creature effects. As the movie barrels through its third act, its biggest story twists and payoffs prove to be all the more predictable and tired, right down to a dramatic ending that will only catch you off-guard if you've never seen a sci-fi/horror flick before.
On the other hand, formulaic plots and over-the-top gore come with the territory, and Breach has enough trashy charm to appeal to those who tend to enjoy goofy-bad films of this kind. Willis seems as disinterested here as he has in most of his recent movies, but he does keep his tongue pressed firmly in cheek for most of the runtime and proves he's still a master at delivering snarky one-liners. Save for Jane, who very much hams it up, the rest of the cast tend to play their roles earnestly, which makes for a good juxtaposition to Willis' bemused attitude towards seeing his former colleagues transformed into a mindless horde of murderous monsters.
There are interesting underlying ideas in Breach about whether humans can overcome their destructive tendencies on another world and the importance of never giving up the fight to make a better future. In the end, though, the movie never fleshes these concepts out and its themes wind up feeling as slapdash as its story and craftsmanship. Still, while Breach isn't scary or remotely original, there are moments when it provides some amusingly cheesy sci-fi action action/horror entertainment. Any film that finds a way to give Willis a flame-thrower is doing at least one thing right.
Directed by John Suits from a screenplay by Edward Drake and Corey Large, Breach stars Cody Kearsley, Bruce Willis, Rachel Nichols and Thomas Jane. The film will be available to buy or rent digitally on Dec. 18, with a limited theatrical release planned.