Europa Report

31 July 2013. Jumbled, disjointed. This chaotic but visually compelling sci fi movie is about a space attempt to one of Jupiter's moons. Europa has the look and production value of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien and the more recent Love (2011) about survival in space. However it tries too hard being classy. The use of voice-over is unnecessary and excessive. Attempts at the Blair Witch Project documentary approach is uneasily combined with the more stark Kubrick photography. Finally the flash back and flash forwards leave the audience spinning in confusion and disorientation.

If only the director had just simplified and shot the movie in the traditional linear footage like the 50s Forbidden Planet or even First Space on Venus, this movie had the potential to be a great. It had the look some of the best space visuals of any sci fi movie to date. It had serious intention, but the sounds in space and no space-time lag in communications between the space craft and Mission control are real major technical flaws for a movie like this. It had had poor editing making it confusing almost to the point of being unwatchable. Some of the dialogue and space craft activity were penetrating and appealingly jargon-oriented really capturing the ambiance of real space exploration but at other times seemed just too banal, used for impressing an uneducated audience that in these days seems a pretty sad commentary of how the producers or director thought of its audience. The non-linear, broken time flow made the movie into a hodge-podge of scenes that only made sense to the editor or director. The revealed reason for the communication lost, scenes that the audience was subjected to twice wouldn't have been unpredictable as described, it would have been monitored and not unexpected. This seems to be just a convenient script device that only weakens the storyline. Another problem was the strangely edited debate scene about going out exploring which was literally broken in half and completed after another completely different scene was inserted. The approach landing scene was visually amazing, but there wasn't enough of the close up of the landing to be brilliantly, dazzlingly and later one of the Mission specialists gets to look out at a close up of a fantastic landscape while the audience only get to see the specialist looking out the window and only later does the audience get to see what the specialist saw after the fact. Finally even as fantastic as the visual photography and set design and landscape design were, there were too many photographic style changes that prevented this movie from flowing smoothly nor allowing the story to become an intimate compelling close up personal story for the audience. Instead the photographic changes became a background distraction.

In one of the major crises scenes its power was taken away by too much previous random, almost pretentious space banter and not enough film time devoted to building up this crucial scene. Nevertheless it was one of the best scenes of the movie, well done both visually and sound wise. Another great scene was the disembarkation from the space craft that was so authentic and visceral, though too much of the 2001 movie helmet-face shot was used instead of allowing the audience to have an extended personal experience of wonderful out of this world landscape shots. Why there was only one space explorer out there seems odd too. Even this great sequence seemed off when there was a little amount of sample time left then suddenly became time to leave then mysteriously all the crew's concern over radiation levels seems to disappear and miraculously there's more time to explore further creating a bewildering sense of incongruity with the script plot outline overtaking the consistency and believability of the story. Even later there is a final face shot but not of what the astronaut was looking at creating more of a disconcerting unnecessary puzzle. At some point two thirds the way through the movie the continuing anomalies that keep piling up in juxtaposition of the overall tone and presentation of this movie. The more authentic and believable, documentary tone of this movie is in contradiction to the number of calamities that befall this space voyage making it more of a stretch to suspend judgment of its theatrical veracity. Instead of focusing on extended scenes of great potency to captivate the audience, the script and director have chosen quantity over sustained quality, allowing the film's integrity to grow dangerously thin. It's almost as if there were at least two or more short films occurring in this movie. The film also eventually becomes more unclear as to what is supposedly recorded film that the audience is seeing and what is just the movie presentation itself that supposedly wasn't recorded but was shot to help fill in important details for the audience, just more distracting, off-putting film experiences. 2010 (1984) a follow up to 2001 with its own voyage to Jupiter had similar events occur in respect to Europa Report but which Europa was able to exceed in the space adventure depiction of its story but also fell short compared to 2010 in its overall movie presentation and storyline coherence. Perhaps the greatest mistake was the use of the flashback technique which in fact became at least two different flashbacks destroying some of the mystery and unknown of first discovery as if the audience was really only getting a compilation of a report instead of being able to be apart of this amazing visually dazzling space adventure themselves.

Overall, this movie of really great potential and visual photographic power and narrative style is similar to Moon (2009) but became even more of a great disappointment with its poor editing and scene selection that only serve to create a massive jumble of confusion, difficult to follow and comprehend and enjoy. If only that director had stayed with a simple presentation this would have been a great cinematic achievement.

Imagine NASA making a documentary about a hypothetical exploration of Jupiter's moon, Europa. Now add elements of high drama to make the documentary a little more entertaining. Et voilà! Europa Report.

In many respects this film reminded me of 2010:The Year We Make Contact: It has much of the feel of 2001 but the decision making, along with the science, is less credible than 2001. So that's about the same as 2010. The film is based on our actual scientific knowledge of Europa which is a big plus for the film.

Europa Report is presented as a retrospective assessment by a mission controller on Earth. It is well done but somewhat flat and predictable. The attempts at drama are equally flat and predictable.

So how to sum up? Europa Report is a well crafted movie and you can easily imagine this is an actual space mission. It makes a refreshing change from space soap operas and silly adventure films like Armageddon. However it will appeal most to scientists, engineers, teachers and those with a genuine interest in space exploration. If all you want is another episode of Star Wars you should look elsewhere, but personally I kinda liked this movie. Of course I'm an engineer.

Here is some context about Europa for you: it is a tiny, as in tiny, ice ball located 390 million miles away from Earth. It has essentially no atmosphere and a temperature of -260 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees colder than Mars gets at night). It is one of the most dangerous places in space with a radiation level 1,800 times that of earth on its surface. As has been pointed out before, sending humans to this moon without extreme protection is suicide.

I think this film could have captured the sheer terror of deep space, the deadly environment of Europa, and the possible deadliness of whatever creatures it may, or may not, contain if it ditched the found footage motif entirely. I never liked the found footage format it just never seemed as frightening and in your face scary as experiencing it "live". It's like watching a youtube video of the scary thing instead of being in the scary thing.

Another drawback of the found footage is we lose a wider view of the environment, a big problem here because you want the audience to see Europa and the massive nearby Jupiter. I think I saw more of both in the movie's poster than I did in the actual film. The film loses a few stars for these reasons.

On the other hand, the movie earns some kudos for fairly good acting, reasonably realistic portrayal of astronauts, some stressful and frightening moments, and a generally intriguing look at what could be lurking out there in space. If only it wasn't found footage.

As a science/space enthusiast, I found this movie to be really interesting and enjoyed it. I think all the viewers who like these types of plots would enjoy it, but the directorial approach may be annoying to some viewers. The shaky statics videos and limited angels of camera view might not be too popular. There wasn't any character development or focus on the characters, it was pretty straight forward. The documentary style used was reasonable. The best thing about this movie was it was a low budget indie movie which did a wonderful job. A lot could have been better. Humans traveling to space and land on Europa, a moon in Jupiter, that itself is a reason to watch it, Do not expect a typical Hollywood style movie. However this movie takes a very realistic approach to present the complex space mission depicting the psychological and the physical strains on the astronauts.

I liked this movie. It was a good sci-fi flick, but based in a believable near-future world. The voyage is captured by stationary cameras throughout the ship and a story is patched together from them. The acting was very good. There admittedly wasn't much in the way of character development, but I didn't notice it. The whole film I was hoping the story would move forward faster and faster to the end, to find out what, if anything, was discovered, and the fate of the crew.

Mostly what I liked about it was that it wasn't over-the-top storytelling, nor was it over-the-top with special effects. It used them only to tell the story that needed to be told and weren't overused. One reviewer chastised the special effects as being poor, but I disagree. They were believable. Bad is the crap they make for the Science Fiction Channel.

This movie may not appeal to everyone precisely because it's not over-the-top. It was simple, with building tension throughout the film and a good ending. There weren't monsters and aliens everywhere, there was a distinct Hitchcocian feel to it.

Very good; well worth watching.