Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
In which a mission to Mars goes wrong. I am as shocked as you are. Let’s just hope there’s no ghosts there.
Toni Collette’s Marina Barnett reports to ground control that their launch appears to have used up more fuel than expected and is told not to worry about it. Which seems odd, but odder still is when she notices blood coming from the walls of the ship. Oh no, it’s all going Event Horizon again. No, thankfully it turns out it’s simply one of the ground techs that had an accident during final prep, falling unconscious and apparently no-one noticed his absence. Seems wildly unlikely, but maybe Elon tweeted something about a non-fungible dogecoin and distracted everyone or something.
At any rate, the presence of Shamier Anderson’s Michael Adams soon presents more of a problem than a simple lack of crew quarters. While Anna Kendrick’s Zoe Levenson and Daniel Dae Kim’s David Kim initially get on with their work, helped where possible by Michael, turns out having him bounce around in the wall cavities during launch has irreparably knocked out a crucial piece of life support equipment.
Essentially, there’s not enough oxygen to get them to Mars, and nothing that the brains trust back home can think of to help, particularly after the repurposing of David’s algae experiments into an ad hoc oxygen scrubber fails. So the crew are left with the horrendous moral dilemma of sacrificing some so others can live.
Now, can I take a quick moment to simply congratulate this film for existing, despite a complete absence of pan-dimensional horrors or other such nonsense. It’s a science fiction film that’s more or less about -gasp- science, not magic. In a great many ways it’s a throw back to the cinema of the seventies, which is where I imagine a lot of the most common criticisms of the film are coming from. Sure, it’s slow paced, although compared to The Andromeda Strain it’s a thrill-a-minute rollercoaster, so in a lot of ways I think this is more of a flaw with the audience than the film.
In fact, I really like approximately ninety percent of this film. There’s a solid set of turns from the ensemble, and they and the script do a fairly good job of conveying the emotion, stress and gravity of the piece, particularly when push is coming to shove, without being laden with overly descriptive clunky dialogue. I like that while it’s perhaps not exactly hard science fiction, it’s at least a slightly squidgy solid. The production design is also fairly on point and believable, certainly for a relatively small budget. There’s a lot more I like than dislike, to be sure.
It’s a shame that the one thing I did dislike threw a bit of a pall over the final reel, which without giving too much away when it comes time for the sacrifice that’s been on the cards since about the twenty minute mark, there’s a seemingly arbitrary clock put on it that, well, I can’t exactly check the maths on so I suppose I’ll just have to go with it, but really does not seem to jibe with the earlier descriptions of the situation, and left me kind of flummoxed trying to remember if I’d missed something rather than enjoying what’s supposed to be the emotional crescendo of the piece, and wondering why an excess of solar radiation gives people a weird green aura that in cartoons would denote a stench.
Something also tells me there’s a logical further act that would be more interesting than that moment of sacrifice itself, as the survivors deal with that for the not inconsiderable remainder of the voyage. So, maybe as a film it doesn’t quite stick the landing, and it’s pace means it’s not going to be for everyone, but if you are a fan of the more serious side of sci-fi from days gone by I’d say it’s worth putting on your watch list, if for no other reason than to encourage the powers that be to make some more of it, please.