daeris

I started to watch this one as the trailer got my attention. Something around: who knows, maybe it is watchable. Three and a half episodes later I feel disgusted and tricked. If you want just another story about how bad people can react under stress please go ahead. For me this is boring as any other cheap "psychological study" in TV series, an excuse for lack of creativity of the scenario author...

Setting seems original, but only till you get this will be all about cliche characters doing cliche things. No suspense, no mystery, not till this aforementioned three and a half episode. I am too bored and disgusted to wait further...

But there is one more thing... What I find particularly offending is what I didn't know when I started to watch this. That this is in fact another iteration of Jacek Dukaj's "The Old Axolotl"! A great piece of hard science fiction with deep story and brilliant ideas. One of the best books of the genre. What did the Netflix guys got form it though? Just the begining, turned into a flat story of repeating themes and quite unpleasant to watch... Because the emotions rules it all, "no intelligence included".

This is probably the worst film I have ever seen. I tend to be grumpy when films are considered, especially as I'm born and raised true _Sci_-Fi genre fan as well as the Aliens one. So first I tried to find anything in this production worth praising. I failed miserably as the only two good things I could say about it is:

• when you are an idiot on the unknown planet you will die - this is the basic truth you can derive from the story, so it has educational value for future space explorers and preschool children in general,

• I watched the film not in 3D so my head hurt only for other reasons as below.

I'm also very sorry for the actress playing main character as she is several levels of magnitude better than the production as a whole.

There is literally no scene in the entire scenario that has at least a drop of sense. All the story elements seem to come either from cheapest childish comic book, some junior wannabe copywriter sure to make money as he works on such a big franchise he does not understand the least, some dark corners of creators mind full of unexplained fears and deviations, or simply out of the blue... Another thing is nothing works it this world as it is supposed to. Be it technology, human relations, biology, even ol' good gravity - it behaves exactly the way it is needed in a particular scene but does not follow any usually applicable standard rules or logic. The film is also 100% predictable - you will know what will happen at least 15-30 minutes upfront. The part of the scenario, that was probably intended as the biggest suspense, is so obvious the moment it starts that it is just pathetic...

But most of all this film is boring. Boring so much that it is probably the first time in my life I seriously considered leaving the cinema. And already after 30 minutes... I was checking my watch several times during the show, again I think first time in my life. Film is full of long scenes that were possibly intended to be deep and meaningful but ended up as completely unmoving crap. The flow is: nothing new, nothing interesting then some blabbering meant to be philosophical, kind of "the big and eternal questions" one but flat and constantly missing the point, and then someone "suddenly" dies in horror class B full of gore scene that is so predictable you won't even feel a thing. And then its boring again.

Waste of time and I think I won't ever go for Ridley Scott film. Seriously Mr Scott, I respect your previous (previous to Prometheus that is) works so I can only say: please retire...

History is my field of interests. I am in a historical re-enactment society, read quite a lot about the European history etc. This was wrote to point, that I do treat history as an important part of my life. I also like fiction and fantasy literature and I like when there is a solid border between fiction and historical scenarios/books/etc. I particularly despise productions, where “historical costume” is used only as an excuse to tell quite present-day politically correct stories about love and patriotism. And I was really worried this could be such a production especially since it was made “by the order” of Kremlin. But it was not. On the contrary – there is love, there is patriotism, there is pride of being a part of Russian nation and even some political correctness (a little) but all of it is served in the funny, warm and definitely not serious way and not the standard pathetic Hollywood-style. As for the history in the picture it is treated similarly, I mean not to serious. There are historical figures and historical events but they are mixed with fiction and fantasy. To do such a thing without losing the “spirit” of the period requires a great deal of talent and is almost impossible. But they have done it and they have done it great! But when I wrote that they treat history not too serious I did not mean “without respect” since there is a great deal of such respect that shows in costumes, characterisation, armament and in the commentaries throughout the movie. Well – there are some mistakes especially in polish cavalry (especially for me – this is the part I am interested the most J) but one can live with that. Treat it as a half historical half fantasy-adventure one and you will have a great time. The actor playing main character adds a lot to this adventurous mood – I think he has a potential for being next Johny Dep! His young and some times it shows that he need practice but he definitely has a talent. Small warning – movie might be a fantasy-adventure one but hen people die there they die, well…, realistic enough, so this is not a “family” movie. In my opinion it’s 9 out of 10 since there are some minor imperfections like the beginning is a little to slow and to mystic sometimes, there are some mistakes in costumes or armament I have mentioned above and some “wooden” background dialogs. Also this is another movie where the heavy cavalry really do not know what the charge should look like. But the movie is definitely a “must see” especially if you like historical and/or adventure shows.