--WARNING: There may be some spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen the film, so just a heads up. In order to accurately review this film, it may be necessary to talk about some key moments.--
It's hard to knock Europa Report on the technical aspects, or even for it's premise or it's outstanding performances. My gripe with the movie stems from it's storytelling, and decisions made throughout the film. Frustration starts to occur about 45 minutes or so into the movie when it quickly becomes evident that the film can't keep itself interesting without needing to kill off it's protagonists.
Unfortunately, this film strings you along via a monologue by the one crew member leading you to assume someone survives the whole ordeal, simply to discover within the final moments of the film that she, just like everyone else, will die. Earlier in the film, connections with everyone back on Earth were lost...and they are magically through her quick thinking at the end reconnected so that all the footage of their mission can be received for what they had gone through to become known back home.
It's suppose to be bittersweet I guess, but instead it seems like the movie just forced itself into having reason; like the screenplay itself became too big to handle, and no good outcome would justify everything having occurred in the film. A happy ending isn't always necessary, but space films all too often seem to have this opinion that you're going to die if you leave Earth, and our curiosity will end up getting the best of us. It's a song and dance we've seen before, and honestly, watching Moon was a similar and much better experience years earlier.
One last note, the mystery of Europa and it's 'iridescent' lighting ended up being a deep sea creature, that would've been a cool sort of way to end the movie, however, Michael Bay would be proud, because unless I'm just lacking in scientific knowledge, no see creature would look like something that ended up getting scrapped as a design choice for a creature while making "World of the Worlds".
This is not a bad movie however, as I would recommend it, but it's not all the great things it seems to play itself up to. A decent space film at best, that in every other way aside from how it's story unfolds is worth watching.
It's hard to knock Europa Report on the technical aspects, or even for it's premise or it's outstanding performances. My gripe with the movie stems from it's storytelling, and decisions made throughout the film. Frustration starts to occur about 45 minutes or so into the movie when it quickly becomes evident that the film can't keep itself interesting without needing to kill off it's protagonists.
Unfortunately, this film strings you along via a monologue by the one crew member leading you to assume someone survives the whole ordeal, simply to discover within the final moments of the film that she, just like everyone else, will die. Earlier in the film, connections with everyone back on Earth were lost...and they are magically through her quick thinking at the end reconnected so that all the footage of their mission can be received for what they had gone through to become known back home.
It's suppose to be bittersweet I guess, but instead it seems like the movie just forced itself into having reason; like the screenplay itself became too big to handle, and no good outcome would justify everything having occurred in the film. A happy ending isn't always necessary, but space films all too often seem to have this opinion that you're going to die if you leave Earth, and our curiosity will end up getting the best of us. It's a song and dance we've seen before, and honestly, watching Moon was a similar and much better experience years earlier.
One last note, the mystery of Europa and it's 'iridescent' lighting ended up being a deep sea creature, that would've been a cool sort of way to end the movie, however, Michael Bay would be proud, because unless I'm just lacking in scientific knowledge, no see creature would look like something that ended up getting scrapped as a design choice for a creature while making "World of the Worlds".
This is not a bad movie however, as I would recommend it, but it's not all the great things it seems to play itself up to. A decent space film at best, that in every other way aside from how it's story unfolds is worth watching.