If you've ever argued with your buddies at a drunken 2 am about who would win, astronauts or zombies, this movie answers that question. I avoided watching this movie, passing it by on my Netflix list for several months, after the pain and disappointment of Stranded, which gave birth to my eye roll count category it was so bad. Thankfully I was very pleasantly surprised by this film.
Liev Schreiber (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Elias Koteas (Collateral Damage) and Olivia Williams (Dollhouse, Man Up) make up half of the crew. Their days are short, their tour is almost up, they're two weeks from retirement... blah blah blah you know the trope. Then of course someone does something boneheaded and screws it up for everybody.
There is a reason why the space program weeds out people who break rules and don't follow protocols, people... because one guy screws it up and everybody has a very, very bad day.
One laugh out loud moment, and the rest of the time I was pretty much glued to the screen. There is a bit of a slump when there's half an hour to go. I don't know if it's because it's been non-stop tense from the beginning and that's the limit for me before I stop paying attention because I can't take the tension anymore, or if things truly slowed down. I will say that despite my talking to the screen ("Why don't you headbutt him, you have a helmet on?!?") and the usual horror movie moments of "Don't go in there! Don't split up!" there were no true eye roll moments for me.
If you loved Aliens or have a soft spot for zombie movies, you might find it hard to craft to this one. It's not as intense as Gravity, but it's certainly a step up from Ghosts of Mars, which I enjoyed but found a bit campy. Four and a half stars on this one, and the only improvement that would make it better would be to explain Schreiber's character's constant panic attacks throughout the film. They're represented by surreal visions of his time on the space station before coming on assignment from what I can gather, but early on in the film you're left wondering if he's seeing visions of the past, future, or being contacted by the as yet not revealed enemy via psychic means.
Solid viewing choice, and a nice addition to any sci-fi or zombie collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment