Cargo

I've watched this in the English dubbed version. It was horrible. The voice actors had no emotion in their voice which made the movie very dull and drawn out. In the English version, the character development was zilch. Be ware of the captioning as well - things like "enjoyable" in the audio become "unpleasant" (so the complete opposite of what the character is saying) in the captioning. You aren't drawn to the characters so you don't really care what happens to them.

The plot was okay but in no means fantastic. If you enjoyed movies like The Matrix and Sunshine (though without the science background in Sunshine) you might enjoy Cargo. Just make sure you watch it in the original German!

We have here a rather interesting sci-fi film in the vein of Sunshine, Moon or Solaris, where most of the action takes place in an isolated, enclosed artificial environment. It's in the future, Earth has been rendered uninhabitable for some undisclosed reason, and people live in squalid conditions on space stations in orbit. There's a new heavenly planet, Rhea, where people can emigrate to if they can afford it. Our main character, a doctor, gets hired for a very long (8 years) shuttle cargo round trip to resupply a remote space station. With her salary, she should be able to rejoin her sister already on Rhea. She, like the other crew members, is in cryogenic sleep most of the time except for 8-month awake shifts. As one can suspect, she starts hearing strange noises, senses some kind of presence in what should be a deserted ship. She wakes up a few people, and then things get worse when somebody gets killed.

One would think that this would be a premise for some kind of thriller involving a nasty alien creature. Cargo is not really that. Sure, it has good suspenseful moments, but it's the kind of slow-paced atmospheric pensive movie where you're more likely to be interested in the unfolding secondary mysteries than on discovering who the killer is, or who might be struck next. At least that was the case for me. My mind was going in overdrive trying to figure things out, inventing hypotheses, and I like that. Unfortunately, and I don't know if it's a translation issue from the original German (although it's a Swiss film), certain important plot elements were not made clear when they should have been. I had to check the Internet afterwards to properly understand a few things. Don't worry, we're not talking 2001 metaphysics here, far from it. :)

The characters were rather stoic most of the time, but at least they were ambiguous and not easily predictable. A particular blossoming romance didn't feel quite right, especially how it started. It somewhat hurt the emotional involvement later on, although you can see the director really tried for a good pay-off. I thought the main actress lacked a certain something, but she became more convincing as the film progressed, especially in one of her final scenes involving greenery. The special effects were of tremendous quality especially for a non-American film. Every space structure from the outside looked amazing. On the inside, it was appropriately dismal, sinister and even grandiose sometimes. I think Cargo might disappoint if you're expecting something more action-oriented. I personally enjoyed the story despite certain badly explained plot elements. I also liked it more from an intellectual perspective than from an emotional perspective.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10 (Good)

First of all I'm a bit curious about the low rating of the movie here (6,4). This is a great movie raising all sorts of questions to the viewer. Which is what a good movie is supposed to do. Identity, sense of belonging, isolation, and the essence of the human nature are just some of the things the movie touches on. Yeah there are plot points that have been explored before in other movies but seriously who cares? It's how you portray those situations and plot. So I wasn't disappointed there. In fact I wasn't disappointed at all!! A brilliant film that will speak to the audience that loved, "moon".

Congrats to all the people involved in this movie. Hope someday it'll be released on Bluray.

Maybe not the absolute best of the genre, but certainly is worth the time to watch.

It's a bit difficult to describe some of the more interesting aspects of this production without accidentally providing spoilers, so my rendering of such here might be a bit limited.

At the very least, the visuals are remarkably well done.

The basic concept is the cargo ship going into deep space with its mysterious cargo, and the theoretical world Rhea, which is supposed to be a beautiful paradise of a world, as an alternative to Earth which has been ravaged by horrific industrial pollution, disease and environmental damage.

However, as this journey progresses, various layers of intrigue begin to become apparent, nothing is as it seems to be at first . . . and that's about as far I'll go in portraying the story.

I thoroughly recommend seeing this in its original German with subtitles.

The acting is well done, even though there are a few spots in the story that are a bit of a cliche'. Stylistically some scenes are very reminiscent of the original Alien film scenes, but this is not about alien lifeforms causing havoc on the ship, quite different actually.

Given the overall caliber of this production, definitely rates a solid seven stars.

Cargo is dazzling, mystifying, sometimes scary, and is able to manipulate a rather familiar plot to seem less familiar. That last one however, is just as much a weakness as it is a strength. The film's problems are not on the screen, but on the pages.

Cargo contains a weighty story line, with questionable focus and a lack of coherency. There are also places where the movie feels draggy and repetitive. Characterization gets off the ground but not quite to the degree of emotion that was probably intended.

Anyone who sees Cargo is gonna wish they had seen it in theatres. Its greatest achievement is photography. I liked Cargo for its mystique and stylistic choices, but the writing and construction need a tune up. Its facade is perfect but its soul is murky, and its story is disoriented which does not allow us to appreciate Cargo to the full.