Refúgio

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.

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.

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.

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.

A solid sci fi film. Cinematography was great, acting was good. As others have noted various plot points have been done before but what film doesn't do this? Fairly slow-paced but still holds your attention.