An international group of astronauts and scientists
traveling to Europa, the fourth largest moon of Jupiter, in search of life
must instead fight for their own survival when the mission goes horribly awry.
As much as I wanted to like Europa Report I just couldn’t get past the fact that it’s nothing
but a generic rehash of a hundred other movies like Mission to Mars, Red Planet,
The Core, Sunshine, 2010: The Year We
Make Contact and every other disaster flick from the past forty years. It’s
so by-the-book and cliché that I’m surprised that it even got made, let alone
managed to snag two great actors and a decent effects house.
The story unfolds with a mix of found footage and interviews
with some of the Earthbound characters about the Europa Mission. The found
footage aspect is pulled off decently and is given a nice explanation as to why
this tired storytelling gimmick was necessary. There was a constant feed of
video being streamed from the ship to ground control that was interrupted by a
random solar flare. All the video being recorded from that point on was
streamed all at once once the communication systems were repaired during the
film’s climax. The interview segments, mainly focusing on the characters played
by Embeth Davidtz and Dan Fogler (!?), are the exact opposite and seem forced
and phony.
The script by Philip Gelatt is as routine as they come and
follows the standard outer space disaster film to a “T”. People go into space,
things go wrong and they die one by one usually due to their own stupidity.
Example: you’re out on the surface of Europa and are told that you only have a
certain amount of air left and the radiation has reached a dangerous level…
would you go and explore something you saw out of the corner of your eye? Is it
any surprise that what you think would happen happens? The screenplay is
predictable and tedious, never gives the crew members any real character
development (Copley receives a small amount) and ends in such a sudden and
anticlimactic fashion that it is frustrating beyond belief. The non-linear
storytelling gimmick used is also extremely confusing and disorienting.
Director Sebastián Cordero seems more interested in making
sure his found footage gimmick is working than directing his actors or making
them likable or relatable. Sure his visuals of Europa are breathtakingly
beautiful, but when I don’t give a crap about any of the characters it’s kind
of a moot point. His pacing is lethargic, the interior shots are boring and
horribly staged (the spaceship set looks really cheap) and nothing going on is
made out to be even remotely interesting. Disappointing to say the least. And could the clock that pops up on screen to
tell us what month/day/time it is be any more confusing looking? Using this
method to get across the non-linear story structure lost me more than
I ever should have been.
When it comes to the acting Copley is the most successful of
the cast by turning a nothing character into someone mildly likable. Nyqvist
doesn’t do much but sit in one spot and stare at a screen. The same goes for
the rest of the players: Christian Camargo, Karolina Wydra, Anamaria Marinca and
Daniel Wu. They just go through the motions for the most part, with Marinca
only coming to life within the film’s final moments. The way they acted once
they landed on Europa reminded me of all the shots of the bridge crew from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. You know,
when they would just stare wild eyed at the viewscreen as they traveled deeper
into the V’Ger cloud? Maybe Cordero used that film as a reference? Whatever the
case may be, their bland performances make a slow moving movie even more
tedious.
Sure the special effects are rad and some of the stuff that
goes down is decently entertaining, but like I said at the top of this review,
this is about as by-the-book as these flicks come. I saw everything coming
minutes before they did, and I even had the order of the character’s deaths
sussed out beforehand. Europa Report is not worth your time unless you love
your entertainment ultra-predictable, boring and (thankfully) under 90 minutes.
As you can probably already tell, I do not.
1.5 out of 5
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