Tides

This is a film made in Europe, so naturally the score of 5 on Imdb translates to an actual 8 if you think about it a little. The acting is great - even the children, the story makes sense, the direction is good, the atmosphere well thought out and the movie well executed. And that on a budget that is probably orders of magnitude smaller than an American film.

Earth is made uninhabitable by people, so the elite just leave it behind and move to another planet. However, the joke's on them, as they lose all reproductive ability there, so they need to come back. The story is about this woman who is the sole survivor of a survey mission and who discovers people still live on Earth, including earlier surveyors. The action is well done, the characters believable and, other than a rather disappointing finale, it's a pretty good film. There are themes of racial supremacy, protecting the Earth and a general moral that ethics are important and the means are not justified by the end.

Bottom line: I recommend it. It's not perfect, it has its flaws, but overall it does exactly what it set out to do and does it well.

The world is wet, covered in perpetual mist, there is almost no color and everything is miserable and rotten.

I became fed up past the first thirty minutes and then spent the next fifteen clicking the 'Jump Ahead 10 Seconds' button looking for key scenes in order to see if things got any less dreary and dull, and to get an idea of the story thesis.

I can report that the sets become more interesting, (rotted big ships from a previous age form a depressing community), and there is something of a developing mystery in the story, featuring fascist leadership and poor waifs, etc. However, even with the power of "Skip Ahead" at my disposal, I found I just didn't care enough to see how the miserable tale played itself out.

Perhaps I've been spoiled, my brain re-wired by a diet of high-speed flashy films and peppy story lines. Maybe slow and dreary and damp are your thing. If so, this film is for you.

As for the thesis...

This film offers a vision of the world from the perspective of Climate Change alarmism. -Which is hard to take if you know anything about how C02 works on plant life; (you don't get endless mud flats and too much water), but who cares about science or facts? -Not the writers, who evidently envision advanced space faring humans capable of removing our species to a distant star system as apparently NOT capable of engineering a landing craft which doesn't look like an ancient Apollo capsule and which doesn't immediately sink to the bottom of the ocean upon touchdown and kill its occupants. Even in the 1960's we knew how to make more reliable space ships.

Tides offers lots of dreary 'feels' which don't care about your facts. Otherwise, the production values and acting were above average and the film made good use of a limited budget.

6/10 because honest craft went into this production.

Lack of clarity in the story robs this of its potential. Some questions are never resolved. One big plot hole involves the immense distance to the extrasolar colony in the Kepler 209 system. At 587 pc (1,914 light years), they would have to have FTL technology. And if they had FTL technology, they would likely have chosen something far, far closer to Earth. Better than that, with the right use of FTL tech, they could have terraformed Mars in a few decades.

Great acting, nice cinematography, but pacing seemed too slow in places. A movie like Das Boot could make boredom seem interesting. That time of deep creativity was missing, here.

'Tides' or 'The Colony' is not a bad film. After a sloppy start which didn't make much sense, like a capsule drowning in water (that is full of air and is specifically designed to float), the absence of technical means for navigation or communication, the film starts to grow. The production quality is great, it looks and sounds really good, the location is solid. Some of the visuals reminded me of the Metro Exodus and Fallout games.

Then, around 30 minutes into the film, it turns into complete boredom after a sequence of vaguely motivated decisions. The problem is the predictability of the story. Every character, every plot thread, the ending - everything is so full of cliches you can pretty much recite the dialogue along with the characters. You know how it is going to end. In fact, I'm writing this review while still watching it, and it is really that predictable.

They don't really try to obscure it or provide an interesting twist. Like, come on, you can't cast Iain Glen and make him look like a good guy.

Anyway, now as the film is over, I can conclude my review. This film is everything you have seen before, plus some virtue signaling fueled by popular political ideas, making me think that it was probably made to fish out some festival awards.

Great production shell, but empty inside.

Is it reminiscent of other sci-fi dystopian flicks that came before it? Yes, but so what. Everything in life is a bit derivative or reminiscent of something else. Personally, I enjoyed the casting, the actors and the acting, combined with the cinematography...as an artistic take on the genre. A bit of an art-house indie version of a sci-fi trope if you will, by comparison with big budget studio productions, which sometimes fall short of late by relying on one or two big name actors to carry them. Aside from Iain Glen, I wasn't familiar with the cast, but they not only performed well, but were relatable and won me over. I didn't mind that the script was light on plot and dialog, but the ending felt rushed. I'd rather they'd have taken their time and added 20 minutes or so to the final cut. Still, the imagery was lovely and the main actress both lovely and powerful.

MORE art-house indie sci-fi with larger casts, please!