As much as Disney tries to claim its streaming service isn’t overly-reliant on Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe when it comes to original content, a stronger argument would be made had the company not essentially shoved Crater out onto the Disney Plus content library without bothering to tell anyone it was even there.
For an effects-heavy intergalactic adventure with a budget north of $50 million, the distinct lack of a marketing campaign made it feel as though the Mouse House couldn’t care less whether or not director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s cosmic caper – which is executive produced by genre fare specialist Shawn Levy – sank or swam.
In reality, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Crater has received lukewarm reviews without coming close to anything approaching widespread acclaim, while it’s made a decent start on the platform’s most-watched charts without threatening the summit. Per FlixPatrol, the film has debuted in 10th spot on the worldwide rankings, which isn’t great when you consider the majority of titles above it are movies that have enjoyed lengthy theatrical releases in recent years.
The story finds a youngster preparing to be relocated to a distant planet in the aftermath of his father’s death, but he opts to carry out his old man’s dying wish first by hijacking a rover to explore a mysterious crater instead. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not particularly good either, it’s kind of just… there. Maybe if Disney wasn’t so apathetic to its own originals it would have fared better, but that’s another diatribe for another day.