Tides

There was not even one detail about this movie that is logical, scientifically correct or even plausible. It is as if the producers found an unsold script in their great grandfather's trunk and decided to make it into a movie without any updating.

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.

This is a smart film. This foreign film reminds me in many ways of three other films; The Road Warrior, Blade Runner, and Pierre Boule's 1970's Planet of the Apes. The beginning scene had me looking for Charlton Heston. Nora Arnezeder is very compelling as the women from Kepler who returns to Earth to see if this abandoned planet will sustain life. Class issues, an undercurrent of Colonial politics, and moral relativism are all intertwined in this dark futuristic Sci-Fi film. It is ambitious. It is visually Dank but not low budget in appearance. It does drag a bit but overall it is pretty good. It is a German film but it is in English.

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!

Wow, I don't think I have seen a film in the past few years with more clichés packed into the dialogue. And there is a lot of yacking in this film, so the clichés and predictable conversation becomes overwhelming.

And for Sci Fi one expects to suspend disbelief on even core elements, but one does not expect more plot holes than a sieve. A civilization that is doing interstellar travel hundreds of years more advanced than 2020 space efforts, but doesn't have landing technology of 1960's Mercury or Soviet Vostok????

Lastly, the acting except for Ian Glenn is atrocious, cringeworthy.