I’m beginning to realize that George Clooney is just a bad director. I had the same problem with this movie that I did with Monuments Men. Things just sort of happen, for no particular reason, and there’s massive tonal swings from scene to scene.
I couldn’t help but thing of her when I heard it.
The paper actually gave this kind of a decent review. So I checked it out last night. Perhaps my expectations were too high…
Very disappointing. In retrospect, the problem you have when the big reveal is that he has imagined his travelling companion, you then question how much is real vs. imagined (kind of like how much of Keyser Soze’s story is real or made up). Were there really dead birds that far north ? Did the kitchen fire really take place ?
I also agree that there’s too much ambiguity about whether the imaginary girl is real or not (is George losing it which is why he didn’t remember leaving his cereal bowl ? Just who turned off the lights in the medical lab when George is getting his transfusion ?)
I had big problems with the space walk scene. I am a rock climber, and their use of the safety lines should have been similar to placing protection as you climb. But you never see them disconnect in order to proceed - so it kind of looks like there are stretches where they are untethered. I don’t care how experienced you are, I can’t see anyone (especially the newbie) taking such a risk.
The “Sweet Caroline” scene just blew it out of the water. Clearly George thought this would be cute…for people of his generation. The movie is set in 2049. This would make “Sweet Caroline” some 80 years old. So it would be like the gang on the international space station today firing up…“Chatanooga Choo Choo” and a bunch of the crew singing along (“Pardon me boy…”). Maybe an “oldie” like a Taylor Swift song, but not Neil Diamond !
It seems like they tried to do some of the science “right”, but then just got too creative in other aspects. Given where we are now, that ship was way too big to be whipped together in about 25 years. I think it would have been much more streamlined, the interior wouldn’t have such elaborate wall covering. And for such a huge ship, they certainly had a minimal crew ! They re-used “The Martian” (and others) slingshot-around-the-earth-to-return ploy…but didn’t bother to even try to indicate the time delays in communicating over great distances.
I think it’s just as well that they didn’t get into any details of how K23 was going to work in the long run. It seems the key aspects were 1) had earth-like enough gravity and atmosphere, and 2) had all this internal thermal energy to tap into. The 2nd point being key as you would need this for things like generating energy for light to grow things (being so far from the sun), and it would also be handy as an energy source for those months (maybe) when the moon is in Jupiter’s (big) shadow (?).
The review I read said that the movie was timely in showing the effects of isolation as we are all experiencing during this pandemic. It seems a bit of a grasp at best.
One of my biggest problems is that the big conflict set up is, “Can Clooney get to this other station and contact the ship before he dies?” Except he gets there, and there’s still another 30 minutes left in the movie.
Here’s how I would make this a better movie:
- Make it clear right from the start that Clooney is hallucinating things and the little girl isn’t actually there.
- Cut out about 90% of the space scenes. I wouldn’t even show the rest of the crew. Just focus on Iris’s attempt to contact Earth.
- Get rid of the soap opera flashbacks. Fine some other way to establish that Clooney and his daughter has never actually met. Speaking of which, was that Clooney’s voice dubbed over the younger actor? Because that was weird.
I think I’d agree. I normally wouldn’t have liked a slow, quiet movie like this. Now… it felt like I’ve been feeling.
Even with some “large” themes (and large plot holes:), it felt like a small film to me.
The Queen’s Gambit had that feel, too. So many times I thought, okay a big-budget feel-good movie would steer left here… and nope, it veered right… and into a cul-de-sac… and many times nothing big happened.
…
(By the way, we might be in the future already. Who would’ve thought we’d be talking about movies produced, not by a Hollywood studio or even a network, but by a company that beams movies (and reruns of old TV comedies) into your house?)
Just watched it, wish I hadn’t. Two questions- 1. Where was everyone evacuating to? 2.The two people left did not really seem to be a couple despite expecting a child. They briefly hold hands then get back to work and finally go separate ways. Were they a romantic couple or did they just have " I’m lonely, lets have sex" affair?
They weren’t explicitly clear on what the crisis was just that everyone generically wanted to rush back to home/family/friends/etc because of it.
Agreed, they did a poor job of showing any chemistry or romance between the couple. Just a mediocre given that they were “together” and expecting a child.