The crew of the spacecraft U.S.S. Palomino are preparing to finish their long mission when they notice a black hole. When they get too close, they begin to get sucked in until they make it safely to a gravity bubble of sorts, that allows them to stabilize their flight. They quickly realize the bubble exists around an older, larger spacecraft, the U.S.S. Cygnus. The Cygnus went missing 20 years ago and is unresponsive, so the Palomino crew decide to take a look. Onboard, they learn that only one crew member remains—Dr. Hans Reinhardt—a brilliant scientist from earth. Reinhardt reveals that the rest of the crew evacuated years ago and he stayed behind to finish his research. Reinhardt developed an army of robots to keep him company and execute the functions of the ship. But the crew can’t figure Reinhardt out. He seems to straddle the space between genius and madman. And more over, things on the Cygnus don’t exactly appear as they’ve been told. The crew tries to get to the bottom of things before the black hole—and Reinhardt’s ambition—consumes everyone.
So “The Black Hole” was sort of Disney’s answer to “Star Wars” (ironic, now), but the film plays more like a TV episode of the original “Star Trek” or “Doctor Who”. The sets and production design have a much more “2001” feel, but the late ‘70s look feels a bit less sleek. The biggest offender of this was the V.I.N.CENT floating robot, with its painted-on, cartoonish eyes. Still, I actually really enjoyed V.I.N.CENT as a character (a snarky, intelligent robot who speaks through idioms and philosophical phrases). And some of the imagery and effects are pretty good. Additionally, while a bit slow paced for my liking, the story starts out as a pretty good mystery.
But ultimately, the film falls apart under the weight of its own ambition, like a spaceship next to a black hole. I was excited for John Barry’s take on a space opera theme, but the music was all wrong—bombastic and swashbuckling at times where it should have been mysterious or ominous (basically the "Interstellar' theme, lol), and at least ‘Mickey Mouse’ the action a bit. And by the end of the film, it felt more like a space-disaster flick (intentionally, as that’s where the film started out), with ridiculous rolling, molten meteors and a silly descent into the black hole. I was so confused about what was happening, I needed Wikipedia to better explain to the fate of the antagonist. A real “WTF” ending.