Nerd Movie Gems: Europa Report

It occurred to me after watching John Carpenter's 1982 "The Thing" that there aren't very many movies about space and, by extension aliens, that don't break down into an us vs. them type of stand off at some point in time during the experiences. I understand. Conflict sells, and so does violence, and lets face it, anything that we come across out there is probably going to at least try and kill us (Dead Space comes to mind most often, which terrifies me somewhat). Europa Report kind of does that, but its more of a humanity vs. the elements of space in an "everything that can go wrong, will go wrong" type of situation.

The story is deliberately broken up and rearranged, and I think that was probably a last minute choice to keep the audience intrigued as it is a rather slow move throughout the film. Things don't really get interesting until the first real mishap, and I won't spoil what that is because I want you to see it (it's on Netflix).

For what it's worth, I actually enjoyed the science in the movie. The actors do a very good job of portraying real scientists. There's very little drama, and that which does bubble up is believable and serves only to furthers the plot. I can absolutely believe these scientists, after spending months in space, taking one more step to risk their lives so as to gather the samples of organisms they made this trip for in the first place. Nothing was done unnecessarily, and you don't see that happen too much in a modern thriller. It also made very good points about the status of humanity and its need for progression. The very last line from Rosa before the big reveal is what hits home the most for me as a viewer: "Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known, what does your life actually matter?"

Another thing I like about this movie is the lack of recognizable faces. I feel an indie movie experience can be rendered unbelievable if too many familiar faces make an appearance. The only two I recognized were Embeth Davidtz and Isiah Whitlock Jr,  and neither of these actors had enough screen time for it to matter. Carolina Wydra, who played Katya, was apparently in a few episodes of True Blood, but as I never watched it she was totally missed on me.

The extended version of the movie only runs for about 97 minutes, so if you end up not being too keen on the film you haven't wasted a great deal of time.

I will say this much: there is an alien, and it's totally worth it. The final scene is a huge payoff for your patience (I feel) in one of most distinct alien designs I've seen in quite some time. However, it is not the antagonist of the movie. There really isn't one save for the whole Murphy's Law attribute (cited earlier) which is what really makes this movie even more believable.

Special effects and graphics do not disappoint, though I wish we could have seen more of Europa before things went downhill. That was probably my only real disappointment.

At any rate, give it a shot if you have some time on your hands and want to see a sci-fi thriller that's a bit different than everything else that's out there.