Europa Report [Blu-ray]

Solid Speculative Documentary with some Science / Plot flaws
By calling Europa Report a speculative documentary, I mean to put it in the same style category of Discovery Channel et. al. efforts like "Supervolcano" and "Alien Contact." It invokes the feel of a National Geographic expedition documentary.

Overall, a great effort for a fairly low budget film. The bad science issues are minor - most notable are the rotating arm of the spaceship with no counter rotation of the rest of the ship (Newton's third law anyone?) and the apparently full Earth gravity on Europa.

The plot devices I consider flaws are unrealistic scenarios like: the problems encountered during the spacewalk, the lack of mission planning that threw such a huge wrench into the crew's plans after landing a mere 100 meters from their intended landing site, a lack of ANY redundant way to communicate with Mission Control, and a few questionable decisions by the crew. (I liken the extension of the surface walk to the classic...
Disappointing Indie Sci-Fi/Horror Flick
Let me say that I'm a BIG fan of both real-life space exploration and sci-fi films (including sci-fi horror). SO, I really REALLY wanted to like this film.

Sadly though, I cannot recommend it.

The problems come not so much from the idea, which is fine (a manned mission to a moon of Jupiter to search for signs of extraterrestrial life). It's the *execution* that causes the film to come apart at the seams.

First off, the 'found footage/documentary' angle is getting pretty old and tired. It adds little to the film beyond a bunch of annoying 'camera flickers' and bobbles, and a lot of hyperactive and unnecessary jumping around from camera to camera inside the ship. As (over)used, it's a distracting and annoying gimmick.

Secondly, and crucially, it doesn't help that we care about basically NONE of these characters. Not even Sharlito Copley (of 'District 9' fame), who just isn't given enough time or space to develop before... well, let's just say...
Great Concept, Poor Delivery
Overall, the film goes for realism but doesn't do its homework.

1.) It's definitely not worth a 10$ rental. I paid the nerd tax to see it early and it wasn't worth it at all.

2.) The editing really hurt the quality of this film. The first half did a lot of jumping around which made following the film difficult.

3.) The characters were paper thin. The only character that seemed to have the slightest depth was the engineer who has a son on earth. There was little reason to care about the other characters.

4.) The plot was weak. Like the crew, the plot is hard to care about. It failed to set the mood and context of the film and tell a compelling story. The most compelling element of the film is: are we alone in the universe (i.e. is there life on Europa)? It's glossed over in the beginning, but even that wasn't enough to carry the film. As strong as such a discovery is, the film has to really make that theme, and why it's important,...
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