Cosmic Sin was released in the United States on March 12, 2021, by Saban Films. The film was panned by critics and at the 42nd Golden Raspberry Awards won the award for "Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie"; however, the award was rescinded following Willis's diagnosis of aphasia.
In the year 2031, humanity establishes its first space colony on Mars. By 2042, "the Alliance" world government has been formed and quantum propulsion technology allows humanity to travel beyond the Solar System. The Mars colony fails in 2281 and the Alliance controls three colonies: Earth, Zafdie, and Ellora. In 2519, Zafdie attempts to secede from the Alliance. During the ensuing war, General James Ford drops a quantum bomb ("Q-bomb") on the rebel colony, killing 70 million people. Ford is subsequently dishonorably discharged from the Alliance military and gains the sobriquet of "the Blood General." His wife, Doctor Lea Goss, leaves him.
In 2524, miners of the Vander Mining Corp stationed on planet 4217LYA (Heracles System) encounter unseen aliens and Captain Juda Sayle reports an "FC incident" to Alliance Command. On Earth, General Eron Ryle is notified of the incident and orders that Goss and Ford be brought to him.
At a local bar, Dash meets with Ford to discuss a potential job. A fight between them and civilians is interrupted by Commander Marcus Bleck, who passes on Ryle's request for Ford's counsel. Ford eventually agrees upon the promise of him being reinstated and his military pension restored. At McMillian Airfield military base, Ford and Dash meet with Goss and Ryle. Survivors of the FC incident are brought in for quarantine and questioning but quickly turn hostile and begin killing base personnel. The survivors appear to be infected, ignore attempts at communication, appear unfamiliar with human technology (except firearms), and "infect" several base personnel, who then themselves turn hostile. The infected humans attempt to board a transport ship but are eliminated by Ryle, Ford, Dash, and several other soldiers.
While the Alliance Senate debates, Ryle authorizes Operation Cosmic Sin – with a strike team consisting of himself, Ford, Dash, Goss, Bleck, Specialist Braxton (Ryle's nephew), and technician Corporal Ardene – to launch a counterstrike against the aliens. Ardene reports that a tachyon pulse was released by one of the infected miners during the base attack, which will allow the aliens to know Earth's location in six or seven hours. The team is outfitted with small arms, Icarus suits designed for combat and space environments, and a Q-bomb. The team plans to travel to the Ellora colony via quantum jump, where Alliance forces have shot down an alien ship. They intend to recover it and analyze the cosmic radiation to locate the alien's home planet, then destroy it with the Q-bomb.
The team arrives in the middle of a battle between Alliance and alien spacefleets, and is forced to conduct an orbital drop through the space debris. Ryle, Goss, Ford, and Dash go missing during the drop, and the remainder of the team comes under enemy fire almost immediately after landing, with Bleck being critically wounded. Elloran survivors rescue the team and, after verifying the team is free of infection, the survivors reveal the aliens have invaded the planet and the area is swarming with alien troops and infected humans. The survivors offer to treat Bleck at their outpost's medbay, and Ardene goes with them. Meanwhile, Braxton, accompanied by sniper Sol Cantos, proceeds to the downed alien ship. While analyzing the ship's radiation, Braxton's Icarus suit reports Ford as alive. He and Sol Cantos recover Ford, who experiences visions of the aliens and Goss while concussed, and they reach the Alliance outpost. Ardene views video recordings that reveal the aliens are a hive mind that parasitically procreates by infecting victims, who then fall under their control.
Braxton gives the coordinates of the alien's home planet to Ardene, who reports the tachyon interference generated by the aliens means they cannot travel to the coordinates without first getting into orbit. Meanwhile, Ford consoles then mercy kills the mortally wounded Bleck. Dash is revealed to have survived and made his way to the outpost.
Ardene discovers the aliens have built a stabilized quantum space gate near Ellora that will allow the alien armada, currently in the Sigea galaxy[a], to invade the Milky Way in force. The survivors plan to collapse the gateway with the Q-bomb by firing it via the outpost's orbital cannon. While prepping the orbital cannon, Ardene receives a signal from Ryle, who has survived in orbit, albeit with his Icarus suit damaged and unfit for reentry. He volunteers to position himself on the gateway and trigger his suit's self-destruct to close the gate after the Q-bomb passes through.
The aliens converge on the outpost and speak through an infected Goss, mocking Ford, preaching the superiority of "the Sigea"[b], and offering the chance for humankind's assimilation or death. After Dash replies with a simple "no," the Sigea begin their attack while Goss boards a Sigea ship. Ford latches onto the ship and later confronts Goss as she prepares to cross via the completed space gate. With the orbital gun charged, Ardene loads the Q-bomb into a missile and fires it at the gate. Goss intercepts the Q-bomb missile in a stasis field, blows Ford into space, and crosses to join the assembled Sigea fleet, inadvertently releasing the bomb from the stasis field in the process.
Ryle positions himself on the space gate and, unable to trigger his suit's self-destruct, provides a target reference for the orbital gun. Ardene, with Braxton's reluctant blessing, fires the gun on Ryle's position, killing him and destroying the gate. The Q-bomb detonates, resulting in a black hole that destroys the Sigea's fleet and home star system. Braxton, stricken with grief, kills the Sigea's field commander on Ellora.
Back on Earth, seven days after first contact, Braxton, Ardene, Sol Cantos, Dash, and Ford morosely celebrate in a bar as the Alliance Senate proudly declares that the remaining Sigea have unconditionally surrendered. Ford takes a shot, sadly reminisces about Goss, and then abruptly leaves the bar.
As of August 27, 2022, Cosmic Sin grossed $349,757 in Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand.[3]
Reception
The film has a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 35 reviews with an average rating of 2.80/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Let he who is without Cosmic Sin cast the first stone—and possibly use it to rouse Bruce Willis from the slumber he seems to be in throughout this dreadful sci-fi blunder."[15] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 9 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[16]
Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com gave the film a zero-star negative review and wrote, "To suggest that Bruce Willis is phoning in his performance in Cosmic Sin would be an insult to telephone communication, which can be an effective means of conveying important information and genuine emotion." Lemire called the film "baffling and boring" and commented: "Worst of all, Cosmic Sin isn’t even a bad B-movie in an interesting way."[17]
Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote that while the film did have some "genuinely impressive special effects sequences" and an ambitious screenplay, it was "pretty tedious" and clichéd. The reviewer commented that while Willis only had minimal screen time in most of his recent pictures, the "good news" in Cosmic Sin was that roughly half of the action directly involved him; however, "The bad news is that he’s somehow more lackluster than usual—something that would seem to be impossible given his recent run." Murray also noted that the film "perks up" when Frank Grillo appears on screen, but that Grillo's screen time was too limited, making him "the Bruce Willis of this movie – offering little more than another recognizable face to put on the poster."[18]
Accolades
Bruce Willis was nominated for his performance in this movie, along with all his other 2021 performances, in the category "Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie" at the Golden Raspberry Awards. The category was later rescinded after he announced his retirement from acting due to aphasia.[19][20]
Notes
↑ Stated in the film as "Segia Majora, 608,912 light years from Earth."
↑ This is the first time the aliens or their civilization are named.
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