If I had seen this film in the theaters I would have been so disappointed. It’s not thrilling or terrifying. That slogan makes no sense here because it’s anything but that. I found the film to be rather boring with very slow pacing all the way through. Part of the issue is in the found footage way they filmed this, another issue is how they keep jumping around as if this is a poorly directed documentary, but the main issue is that the film just didn’t seem to have much point. It felt like 10 Cloverfield Lane where the whole film is just a set up to the final 5 minutes of the film, only make that the final 60 seconds in this one. So this one was definitely a swing and a miss.

The film starts off halfway with everyone panicking because the cameras are going out. There’s tons of panic and then the screen goes dark as we find out that we lost connection with the space group for over 11 hours and counting. They’re probably dead but then we flash forward to someone saying that they found the tapes so what we’re about to see is the untold story. So then we jump to the beginning where we see that the team is going on a trip to space to find any signs of life on one of the moons near Jupiter. We then flash forward again to the crew getting obliterated and then go back to the start. This time we finally stick to being linear for the most part…but not totally as we’ll cut forward several times for one of the scientists to talk about how scary this was and all of that.

So I had a lot of problems with the film but one of them is all this jumping back and forth because it doesn’t make sense. If the company is finally showing this to people as a documentary, wouldn’t they edit it so this is all chronological? Why show the same scenes multiple times when you’re going back and forth? Sure if you wanted to make the whole thing more dramatic then you could do that but it doesn’t make sense if you’re trying to clearly explain what happened. That’s what I don’t like about the film, the whole story breaks apart the more you start to think about it and that should not be the case.

This is presented in such a way as if it was meant to be a thriller film which takes you out of the immersion because it doesn’t make sense with how this was crafted. I mean the whole thing is pretty hard to buy anyway with how they even got the footage after all this had happened but hey we can endure that I suppose. This is just where you sort of have to draw the line after a bit. Then my other big problem is the whole found footage style of camera work in general.

It’s just not an appealing way to watch the film. The screen is too small and there’s not enough freedom of movement. At least they didn’t throw on shaky cam in addition to that for the most part but this kind of style can at most be bearable if the characters are amazing. If you have a 10 star cast who just dazzle you with their quick wit then maybe you can survive but otherwise with characters that are mainly just generic and a bit lifeless this doesn’t do wonders for them. I need some cinematic camerawork and I needed it right away. The film is losing a lot of points right out of the jump due to this.

Then we come to the main problem which is just that nothing really happens here. The film isn’t even that long but it sure feels long with the crew doing endless safety checks and looking at the monitors. When they finally go outside it’s not like we can see all that much because it’s always very dark and gloomy out there. Yes it’s realistic but most importantly…it’s not that fun to watch. So the film has to take a big L there which is unfortunate. A film’s top priority is to be entertaining to the viewers and so when that goes wrong there really isn’t anything to save the experience. That is absolutely rule number 1.

None of the characters ended up being interesting either. Sometimes I wonder if this is a side effect of the found footage style because in all of those movies everyone tends to come across as really boring which doesn’t make any sense. Sure they tell some jokes here and there, they have disagreements about what to do, but they just barely feel like characters. It feels like the same dynamic you’ve seen in just about any space movie. At the end of the day they get distracted when they see something sparkly and end up getting crushed. Also what kind of a space station doesn’t have a decontaminating room.

That whole sequence made no sense. So some space junk got on one of the guys so he can’t go back onto the ship. Okay….but the whole point of the mission is to land on the planet and do some exploring/mineral gathering. So nobody realized that there was a possibility they would pick up something or touch something contaminated? Cmonnnnnn this just felt like they wanted to go for some drama. The classic moment of one guy having to drift off and slowly die in space is definitely a common one that is used a lot but it’s not something that would enhance a film.

Overall, This was a pretty bad movie if you ask me. Just the fact that it was really boring is enough to doom it but throw everything else in and it’s really a wrap. I did like the visual we got at the end of the film so if they make a sequel that’s an invasion/action thriller title then I would check it out. Otherwise this one tried way too hard to be super low key and while you could do that as a comedy, it doesn’t really work so well as a serious space thriller. There’s just nothing to get thrilled about and seeing the characters start to cry or break down mid documentary makes the whole film feel like it’s trying too hard.

Overall 3/10