Europa Report
Loris wants a posting on “Intolerable Cruelty”, but I am leaving that for last. First, let’s start with these films I don’t really care about. “Europa Report” is one of my attempts to get back into science-fiction, a genre I am always lamenting. I love the concept of science-fiction but when asked about good examples, only “Moon” comes to mind. This is strange because I feel like every single season of American TV and movies is crowded with sci-fi titles, but when looking at best sci-fi movies of all times lists, it becomes obvious that most of them are just not that great. “Europa Report” is sadly a perfect example of such a film – great premise, good story, terrible execution.
To be honest, I don’t remember what exactly made the film so bad either. I vividly remember the terrible acting, there is no doubt about that. But besides that? The nonlinearity. Overall, the idea of a nonlinear storytelling and slowly revealing what transpired before and after a key event is a good one. But in my eyes, it mostly looks cheap and artificially creates an atmosphere of anxiety which did not convince me. Another thing that seriously bothered me was how it failed to adhere fiction-writing rule number 1: Show, don’t tell. For some reason, the characters spend an extraordinary amount of time to tell you how scared and anxious and horrified they are, without really showing it on their faces. I am also a little disturbed by the idea of people who are so excited and so willing to sacrifice their lives for a new discovery – surely such people exist, but I am not sure I want to see a horror movie about that. Maybe I am seeing movies with too much emotional baggage, but there is something needlessly heartbreaking seeing people die for a cause that is rather futile in my eyes. That is not heroic, it’s just pathetic and sad.
I am amused to see Anamaria Marinca in this movie. She’s the kind of actress who strangely shot to independent stardom but then practically disappeared (at least for me). Needless to say that I didn’t like her as much here as I did in “4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 days”, but then again I saw that film in a French movie theater and that was a great unique experience. The same thing applies to Daniel Wu (who really looks like Andy Lau, my goodness!), Sharlto Copley (who was great in District 9) and Christian Camargo, the Ice-Truck Killer. This movie had so many good actors but somehow their acting is terrible. What happened?