Expo

I came in to this film thinking it might be something along the lines of a 2-D version of GRAVITY and you can't blame me for thinking this . Lone woman in space finding herself in mortal peril and perhaps facing a long drawn out lonely death . Not a bad idea for a film even though it's been done before . The fault of EXPO isn't that it's been done before but everything seen here is completely over-done in nearly every aspect . You want an audience to empathise with the protagonist ? Well how about making her a single working mom and if that doesn't make you identify with her how about making her a single mom to a sick kid who is battling a life threatening illness ? Are you in tears yet ? How about if someone plays some sentimental music on a solo piano ? If you're not crying your eyes out as to unfortunate life is then you're one cruel hearted b*stard

The sledgehammer manipulative approach lets the film down greatly because e are talking about a short film that wasn't made by a mega-bucks Hollywood studio therefore realising a lunar landscape with Planet Earth seen in the distance must have been a challenge to director Joe Sill and yet this is one thing he accomplishes rather well . . He also resists the temptation of making the future look too futuristic . Okay you can say this is once again down to a lack of budget rather than artistic reasons but one of the serious problems of bringing futurist ideas to the big and small screens is to design everything as being too entirely futurist , so much so it ends up being both laughable and dated at the same time . In fact two of the greatest science fiction films of all time are ALIENS and ROBOCOP and their greatness lies in the fact that everything is recognisably present day even watching them in 2014 . Just a pity Joe didn't concentrate more on the other aspects of EXPO

We just need a lot of information. The woman's daughter dies and she is out in this remote outpost on the moon. She is left to the whims of natural phenomenon. She has become a bitter, angry person but why is she where she is? And why to the powers that be allow her live a lonely, dangerous life?

Shona works on the moon as a minor, getting that hazard pay to try and cover the medical costs in the hope that her daughter will survive treatment and recover from her illness. The news of her failure to respond comes on the same day that a rookie arrives on the moon to take over Shona's position.

Although there are some good examples, I'm finding that sci-fi is a dangerous place for short films. Sometimes they get the mix right of effects and ideas but mixed with a more relatable core, whether it be comedy, drama or whatever; however other times they push so hard to show off technically what they can do, that they do nothing else. For Expo the goal is to make a film that will move you with its ultimately human story which fits into the world (moon) of the future but reaches out with its human. This is the goal but it is a card that overplays consistently to the point of completely undoing anything it is trying to achieve.

While I worried that the ideas would be lost behind the effects and that this would just be a show-reel for that, the truth is that the ideas actually get buried below melodrama in all its syrupy forms. So we have the cloying "feel now" music which plays throughout, we have the obvious flashbacks, the forced emotional conclusion and some hammy performances that think "big" moments are emotional by virtue of pushing it. None of it really works and indeed I just felt cut off from it the more it hammered "emotion" buttons in the hope that by just throwing every cliché at the wall that some of them would work.

It is a shame because technically the film is decent and there are some good aspects around the production considering the limited resources, however the plot is weak and the themes are hammered home without any subtlety or finesse – even viewers whose sole experiences of film is on the Hallmark channel during the day would feel that this is forced and corny.