A movie for the really hardcore, hard science SciFi fan! I was glued to the screen through the entire film. You'll be bored silly if you think every SciFi needs explosions, laser guns and little green men. You'll be in heaven if you think those things only detract from the true essence of SciFi.
This faux-documentary chronicles an astronaut mission to Jupiter's moon Europa finally declassifying the footage from its onboard cameras. It's ground in part covered by Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets, the solar system documentary in the style of Walking with Dinosaurs, but has its own plot, more thrills and danger, and thrillery twists. Yes, there's a science-fiction element at the end of the journey, but it could have been just a procedural about a long voyage to the outer planets and I'd have been just as happy. I'm a big fan of real space stories like Apollo 13 and From the Earth to the Moon, you see, and its better fictional cousins like Gravity. Europa Report aquits itself very well, and it knows it has a relationship to 2001: A Space Odyssey (where astronauts made a similar journey), and plays with that subtly and gratifyingly. Much better than most found footage films.
Everything Gravity should have been. And more.
Recommended to scifi fans who don't need hundreds of millions in special effect, or celebs. A great script, a good direction. Realism over melodrama. And the certainty that science is not limited to what we know.
Was disappointed by this. Siskoid mentioned Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, which is a much better execution of a similar idea. The thing that really bugged me was the way it jumped back and forth in time for no reason, other than to force some kind of mystery out of
what happened to Sharlto Copley's character -- which was a dead-end subplot completely unrelated to the mission anyway!
I just ultimately wasn't impressed with this. There was a lot that it stumbled with, places where it felt like it was lacking story. I didn't really like the way it was presented in the first 20 mins, with cutaways to interviews to fill in story. On top of that, I felt that there was very little reason for me to care about the characters.
When Sharlto Copley dies, it made little impact, I think his death was literally the most on screen time he'd had.
Ultimately, what I wanted going into this movie was a good level of mysteriousness and creepy chills. What interests me in many space travel films is that we are totally alone, our lives at their most fragile. Hearing even a strange noise is enough to make me tense up. The same applies to underwater movies, Das Boot does a great job where every sound heard inside the hull is terrifying. What I wanted was a movie similar to Sphere, where the mystery of it all is deeply intriguing and often the implications are creepy. However, this movie didn't really deliver that for me.
The script and acting were not perfect but as a sci-fi fan I couldn’t help but enjoy this for the most part. Like Aniform mentioned, “feeling alone and vulnerable” is the most important and I think this pulled that off. The premise and found footage narrative were compelling (even if the editing was erratic at times) and really the only complaint was
that they just couldn’t resist revealing the extraterrestrial at the end—they had almost pulled it off! Seeing a tentacled creature really took the wind out of the sails. Sigh.
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Comments 1 - 13 of 13
KuroSawWhat
A movie for the really hardcore, hard science SciFi fan! I was glued to the screen through the entire film. You'll be bored silly if you think every SciFi needs explosions, laser guns and little green men. You'll be in heaven if you think those things only detract from the true essence of SciFi.Siskoid
This faux-documentary chronicles an astronaut mission to Jupiter's moon Europa finally declassifying the footage from its onboard cameras. It's ground in part covered by Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets, the solar system documentary in the style of Walking with Dinosaurs, but has its own plot, more thrills and danger, and thrillery twists. Yes, there's a science-fiction element at the end of the journey, but it could have been just a procedural about a long voyage to the outer planets and I'd have been just as happy. I'm a big fan of real space stories like Apollo 13 and From the Earth to the Moon, you see, and its better fictional cousins like Gravity. Europa Report aquits itself very well, and it knows it has a relationship to 2001: A Space Odyssey (where astronauts made a similar journey), and plays with that subtly and gratifyingly. Much better than most found footage films.BadFluffy
Everything Gravity should have been. And more.Recommended to scifi fans who don't need hundreds of millions in special effect, or celebs. A great script, a good direction. Realism over melodrama. And the certainty that science is not limited to what we know.
badblokebob
Was disappointed by this. Siskoid mentioned Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, which is a much better execution of a similar idea. The thing that really bugged me was the way it jumped back and forth in time for no reason, other than to force some kind of mystery out ofAniform
I just ultimately wasn't impressed with this. There was a lot that it stumbled with, places where it felt like it was lacking story. I didn't really like the way it was presented in the first 20 mins, with cutaways to interviews to fill in story. On top of that, I felt that there was very little reason for me to care about the characters.Ultimately, what I wanted going into this movie was a good level of mysteriousness and creepy chills. What interests me in many space travel films is that we are totally alone, our lives at their most fragile. Hearing even a strange noise is enough to make me tense up. The same applies to underwater movies, Das Boot does a great job where every sound heard inside the hull is terrifying. What I wanted was a movie similar to Sphere, where the mystery of it all is deeply intriguing and often the implications are creepy. However, this movie didn't really deliver that for me.
Tezelian
One way I knew this movie did good was that I was always wondering and asking questions in my mind implying that I was engaged and interested.uggaexul
Better than the overrated Gravity, this is one of the year's best.mightysparks
You'll also be bored silly if you like interesting characters, interesting storytelling and decent acting.Andrewski
The script and acting were not perfect but as a sci-fi fan I couldn’t help but enjoy this for the most part. Like Aniform mentioned, “feeling alone and vulnerable” is the most important and I think this pulled that off. The premise and found footage narrative were compelling (even if the editing was erratic at times) and really the only complaint wasCronos
Aside from some iffy effects, excellent.Lahey
Better than expected.I agree with what mightysparks said, but besides that, it's still a good movie. Realistic and thrilling.
Oneironaut
I tend to like these ones, but nothing happened in this movie. Didn't help that the characters had no personality either.The_Comatorium
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2013/09/12/film-review-europa-report-2013/My review