Viking

What would you do if you encountered problems while serving as a member of the first mission to Mars? You could probably contact experts for advice on technical issues easily enough, but what about personal or interpersonal issues? That might not be as easy, especially if a psychiatrist wasn't part of the crew. So what is one to do? In this inventively fictional what-if offering, space agency officials assemble and isolate an earth-based team of counterparts whose personalities, interests and character are virtually identical to those of their Red Planet doppelgangers. The purpose? To see how these terrestrial surrogates respond to the kinds of challenges that could potentially affect their Martian peers as a means for developing civil solutions and helpful coping mechanisms when these situations arise. Good intentions aside, however, things don't quite work out as anticipated, both for the astronauts and their earthbound doubles. And that premise provides the basis for this brilliant French Canadian sci-fi comedy-drama whose wry humor (some of it quite dark) is simultaneously hilarious, insightful and metaphorical, not to mention astoundingly original, with some of the best writing I've seen in ages. The film's intriguing foundation and telling narrative speak volumes to us on multiple levels (some of which have nothing at all to do with space travel; one could think of this as a fusion of the TV series Moon Base 8 and a Stanley Milgram behavioral experiment). All of this is backed up by the picture's fine performances, superb score and outstanding art direction/production design, along with than a few cinematic homages to such otherworldly classics as "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). It's no wonder that this release captured an impressive 10 Canadian Screen Award nominations, including a win for its stunningly gorgeous cinematography. It's so heartening to see a film these days that's highly intelligent, raucously funny, supremely thoughtful and eminently entertaining. Writer-director Stéphane Lafleur's fifth feature outing may not have received much fanfare thus far, but this truly is a picture well worth seeing (thankfully it's available for streaming on multiple platforms). This one is sure to put you into orbit.

It's not often that we see a sci-fi film that doesn't have a big budget and not produced by a major studio.

Films within this genre naturally require a lot of money for the CGI and general production design.

However, there is occasionally the odd independent release that has decided to go this route.

This particular new release has got a strange concept that I'm not sure where it was going to go in terms of tone.

Now that I have seen it, it was like I was watching an arthouse version of Red Dwarf with an almost Big Brother environment whilst giving nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The purposeful low budget sets and costumes gave us an effective grounded look to the story. This gave us time to concentrate on the characters and it's themes of achieving your ultimate dream both for you personally and as a species.

Steve Laplante was a very capable lead and I liked the journey his character went. He had a very likable screen presence and I think it was helped by his supports.

Larissa Corriveau in particular produced a lot of the films energy and Hamza Haq gave us some good comedic moments as did Denis Houle

I was surprised at how entertained I was. There's genuine laughs to be had amongst the surrealness of the situation.

You can see that the people behind making it loved the material and are fans of sci-fi.

If I was being picky, I think some of themes could have been better utilised. This would resulted in a more satisfying ending as there were some loose ends not quite tied up.

But even with those issues from a personal perspective, this is still a very entertaining watch. The concept worked, the characters are easy to invest with, the deadpan humour is great, the minimal production design enhances the grounded story well and there's a quirky charm to it that is very infectious.

The echoes of "Solaris" (the 1972 original Tarkovsky, not the remake) are hardly coincidental. The crew's moodiness, the claustrophobic interiors, and the "low-budget" effects here match those of the Russian masterpiece. That same year saw the cult classic "Silent Running" by the ingenious Trumbull, the guy who created the effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey". The notion of parallel worlds is a regular obsession in sci-fi and no less here, something Duncan Jones's "Moon" (2009) delved into with startling insights. For people who dislike unanswered questions and loopholes, this movie is not for you. It's part parable, part puzzle, part piss-take. Seriously unserious and vice-versa.

I so wanted to love. However, I appreciate art-house films, but first the "author" must have something to say to the people who will watch his film; something other than a "flash" on two old newspaper headlines. This film is technically well done, despite some questionable choices, but the screenplay has catastrophic weaknesses. The actors do wonderfully with the material that was put in their hands, mainly Stéphane Laplante, Larissa Corriveau, Denis Houle and Marie-Laurence Moreau. Almost perfect score for the soundtrack (and sound recording). Bad choice of filming location: a little more research would have been beneficial. It's rather long, bland (despite two or three good bits of humor) and generally tasteless. The room was half empty during the viewing I attended.

This was great and deserves a lot more praise than it has received - and that may be in part that it hasn't been available in many places online. I think Stéphane Lafleur said a lot with this in regards to human ambition, the mundaneness of that pursuit, and the humour amidst it all.

More than anything, it caught me by my humanness and made me feel a lot of different things: the annoyances that the crew dealt with, the desire for their young female crew member. But it was all contrived! The organizing members of the Viking mission (and possibly other missions...) were quite hilarious in how manipulative their approach to having the fake crew members replicate the actions of the real crew members were.

I would love to see more of this kind of unique take at sci-fi, the subverting of the all-too-serious expectations of the high budget genre. The only reason I didn't give it 10 stars was because of the predictive nature of the two sugars. It was obvious that by the end, the main character was going to at some point have his redemption of coffee with two sugars. I still enjoyed it, but I think the film could've done with less instances of showing David lingering around the sugar cubes.