Debug: Hewlett’s gory homegrown sci-fi story never achieves liftoff

Clearly filmed in a zero-gravitas environment, Debug is a Canadian sci-fi gore-fest with a filmic reach that falls short of even its modest budget.

A telegenic young crew of convicted computer hackers is tasked to clean up the computer programs of a deserted space freighter and reboot the ship.

Their overseer is black – this is a racial reversal of chain-gang dramas – but then again the boss is a junkie-thug and the hackers are ecoterrorists, and mostly righteous.

There's a devilish villain in the circuitry; it's soon clear that the stock characters will die, one by one. (The women have enough time to take off their clothes before meeting their gruesome demises.)

Writer-director David Hewlett probably had visions of a pocket-sized 2001: A Space Odyssey, but instead produces something closer to Cheap Space Nine.