I don't understand the point of the movie. It's about five people who are running a Mars stimulation, inside of a fake Martian compound (i.e, the "tank": of the title). For some reason it's located in Antarctica. I have no idea why. They did the same thing in an episode of 'Stingray' back in 1987 (in 'Flashback'), and that was in the middle of a desert. Why they couldn't put it... anywhere, I have no idea.
All of the five characters are pretty forgettable, except for Dane, played by Brad William Henke. Henke was good in 'The Stand', and he's surprisingly good here. Jack Coleman from 'Heroes' has a small part as the project lead, who isn't eviluz per se but just kind of a jerk who cut a lot of corners. Other than some hearing, we never find out anything about Coleman's character "Reed Baker", or his boss, or their company, or the people running the hearing.
And in fairness, other than as an explanation for why there's a simulation, they don't do much. The main focus is on the five people in the simulation. One is a hardcore religious conservative, there are two women, two men, and Dane. Who seems to be the only one without either psychological problems, or a family, or both. Freed of the angst loading down the other characters, Henke is free to give Dane some actual characterization.
As to the other four... let's just say that the company running the simulation apparently doesn't believe in psych evaluations. The male commander lost his daughter, one of the women Julia has a family (so she agreed to be out of touch with them for this long period), the other male apparently has sexual issues and a history of seizures (no physical screening along with poor psych screening!), and Anne Lisa Phillips plays the other woman, Nelly. Who doesn't have much of a personality, either, although she does get undressed for a brief sex scene with Dane.
And the religious guy, Erik, slowly goes downhill mentally. He starts talking to God, there are a relatively lot of scenes of him praying, and eventually he goes berserk. He shoots Julia with a nail gun, forces the psycho male to reveal he's been peeping on his teammates and has sexual fantasies about Dane, and the guy somehow kills himself. So the religious guy shoots and kills himself with the nail gun. The company doesn't show up on time to pull the people out of the tank, the place flips over in a high wind, and I think Nelly died along with Julia, since having the habitat flipped over didn't do much for the nail in her chest.
Dane has been hobbling around on a bad ankle for months, for some reason I don't get. The flipover aggravates his injury, and the commander Will has to amputate his leg. It doesn't go well, and Dane eventually dies. Will has a vision of his dead daughter, and then the rescue team cut open the habitat and get him out. The end.
And like I asked... what was the point? Most of us have seen this simulation kind of thing before. The 'Flashback' episode I mentioned does the whole thing more effectively, and introduces an unknown variable to explain why the crew mostly killed themselves. Here, the crew dies primarily because Baker was a jerk and didn't do the proper tests. Why? Who knows?
There's also weird directorial touches. The early part of the episode is presented in pseudo-documentary style, as the crew tapes themselves. But then it switches to more standard shots. I'm not quite sure when, but it's weird when they go from the handheld style to the scene of Dane and Nelly have sex. You wonder if they're filming themselves. I eventually caught on.
The acting is pretty minimal except for Henke, and there's no coherent motivations or anything. Things just... happen.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?.
All of the five characters are pretty forgettable, except for Dane, played by Brad William Henke. Henke was good in 'The Stand', and he's surprisingly good here. Jack Coleman from 'Heroes' has a small part as the project lead, who isn't eviluz per se but just kind of a jerk who cut a lot of corners. Other than some hearing, we never find out anything about Coleman's character "Reed Baker", or his boss, or their company, or the people running the hearing.
And in fairness, other than as an explanation for why there's a simulation, they don't do much. The main focus is on the five people in the simulation. One is a hardcore religious conservative, there are two women, two men, and Dane. Who seems to be the only one without either psychological problems, or a family, or both. Freed of the angst loading down the other characters, Henke is free to give Dane some actual characterization.
As to the other four... let's just say that the company running the simulation apparently doesn't believe in psych evaluations. The male commander lost his daughter, one of the women Julia has a family (so she agreed to be out of touch with them for this long period), the other male apparently has sexual issues and a history of seizures (no physical screening along with poor psych screening!), and Anne Lisa Phillips plays the other woman, Nelly. Who doesn't have much of a personality, either, although she does get undressed for a brief sex scene with Dane.
And the religious guy, Erik, slowly goes downhill mentally. He starts talking to God, there are a relatively lot of scenes of him praying, and eventually he goes berserk. He shoots Julia with a nail gun, forces the psycho male to reveal he's been peeping on his teammates and has sexual fantasies about Dane, and the guy somehow kills himself. So the religious guy shoots and kills himself with the nail gun. The company doesn't show up on time to pull the people out of the tank, the place flips over in a high wind, and I think Nelly died along with Julia, since having the habitat flipped over didn't do much for the nail in her chest.
Dane has been hobbling around on a bad ankle for months, for some reason I don't get. The flipover aggravates his injury, and the commander Will has to amputate his leg. It doesn't go well, and Dane eventually dies. Will has a vision of his dead daughter, and then the rescue team cut open the habitat and get him out. The end.
And like I asked... what was the point? Most of us have seen this simulation kind of thing before. The 'Flashback' episode I mentioned does the whole thing more effectively, and introduces an unknown variable to explain why the crew mostly killed themselves. Here, the crew dies primarily because Baker was a jerk and didn't do the proper tests. Why? Who knows?
There's also weird directorial touches. The early part of the episode is presented in pseudo-documentary style, as the crew tapes themselves. But then it switches to more standard shots. I'm not quite sure when, but it's weird when they go from the handheld style to the scene of Dane and Nelly have sex. You wonder if they're filming themselves. I eventually caught on.
The acting is pretty minimal except for Henke, and there's no coherent motivations or anything. Things just... happen.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?.