I have to admit that this movie had me hooked. It's excellent sci-fi, with smart character development, some witty dialog, and several interrelated parallel plot points. It has everything from a mysterious alien device to international and political intrigue. The movie even works with complex questions a bit, including science vs. religion.
Overall the movie is very well written! A lot of the characters were quite compelling and they each seemed to handle the extremely bizarre situations they were in with completely logical and rational behaviors. I was very impressed.
What I don't understand however, is why this movie simply fell completely apart in the end. In the final 30 minutes of the film, its as if the film makers suddenly became bored with the project and decided to simply rush to complete it so they could quickly move on to the next one. All the thought and care that went into making the first 80% of the film was completely and utterly destroyed in the end! Warning, spoilers below! The thing I noticed was the editing suddenly became choppy with noticeable continuity errors. Some of these continuity errors were extremely amateurish and easily spotted. For example, the countdown on the nuclear weapon was jumping by 20 seconds forward and backward as the camera shots changed. I think any director who knows what they are doing should know that when you put a ticking time-bomb on the screen and present it as a major lead to the climax that your viewers will be paying close attention to the countdown sequence. I mean, jeez, its a critical component of the climax! Second, the special effects were very carefully produced and not too bad for a movie on this budget, but near the end it became obvious that the producers wanted to save money or beat a deadline by bypassing a few steps in the compositing and lighting departments. Everything went from pretty believable to obviously CGI with extremely plastic looking textures and poor green screen matting! Even those problems are forgivable if you end the movie by tying up all the loose ends in the plot you so carefully introduced in the first 80% of the film. Most viewers would then shrug off the editing and effects issues as the producers cutting some costs without effecting the story, but when you simply drop the loose ends without tying them up your viewers are left feeling cheated and abandoned.
After all the good they had built up and all the great impressions I had during the first 80% of the film, when the credits rolled I was left wondering what $#!@ happened! I am not a stupid person, in fact, I am highly technical and educated, and I am certainly not new to the world of cinema, but I was left totally confused by several things like: 1. If the Torus was completely destroyed absorbing the force of the nuclear blast, then obviously the mechanisms supporting the generation of the cloud cover were also destroyed, forcing an early end to the Torus's plans. If thats so, then why was it explained as being a conscious decision by the Torus? During the Engineers final presentation four months later, an audience member asked, "Why did the Torus stop terraforming the Earth after it disappeared?" And I thought, "Becuase it was completely !@#%#$ destroyed by a nuclear weapon, dummy!" But no, that wasn't the explanation at all?! 2. What ever happened between China and the US? I would think that China would deem the refusal of rights to co-study the Torus, the shooting of one of its top scientists in the heart, being given a whole 24 minutes notice that it better move its troops back, and finally the detonation of a tactical nuclear weapon within 100km of its borders without at least consulting it first would REALLY tick it off! I mean, jeez, if someone did that to us Americans it would be considered a total act of war and we'd have 250,000 Marines marching across their borders while we saturation bombed the $#!@#$ out of it within 48 hours! So... what ever HAPPENED?!?!? 3. What the hell happened to Captain Tower? I mean, he held a senior officer against orders by pointing a gun at his forehead at point-blank range! I'm no expert, but dude, I think our government would consider that a pretty serious offense and charge him with insubordination, treason, rape, and child molestation... wouldn't you? SOOOOO, what the heck HAAAAPEEENED?!?!? 4. OK so.. the pretty, super-intelligent, and tough female researcher somehow became impregnated while inside the Torus. Obviously, there wasn't time for anyone to be bumping' uglies while the thing prepared to wipe out all life, so how did that happened? OK, lets assume it was the Torus who planted the fetus inside there somehow... OK, so why did she thank the engineer at the end? Plus, why did she even look him up in the first place? "I'm pregnant with a possibly freakish alien life-form... wanna be the Daddy?" That simply HAD to be a tacked on "feel good" ending! I have like 40 other questions but I'm too frustrated and tired to mention them, but I am sure you get the point! Epoch is a perfect science fiction film, with excellent scripting, decent special effects, and a compelling story, and it lasts that way for the first three-quarters of the film, at which point it dies a horrible public death in a swarm of mediocrity and careless film making.
Not a terrible movie to rent, but if you have other choices, I'd recommend trying them first... unless you happen to like sitting on your couch, drooling on yourself while you stare at the credits like a befuddled brain-damaged monkey wondering what the heck just happened.
Overall the movie is very well written! A lot of the characters were quite compelling and they each seemed to handle the extremely bizarre situations they were in with completely logical and rational behaviors. I was very impressed.
What I don't understand however, is why this movie simply fell completely apart in the end. In the final 30 minutes of the film, its as if the film makers suddenly became bored with the project and decided to simply rush to complete it so they could quickly move on to the next one. All the thought and care that went into making the first 80% of the film was completely and utterly destroyed in the end! Warning, spoilers below! The thing I noticed was the editing suddenly became choppy with noticeable continuity errors. Some of these continuity errors were extremely amateurish and easily spotted. For example, the countdown on the nuclear weapon was jumping by 20 seconds forward and backward as the camera shots changed. I think any director who knows what they are doing should know that when you put a ticking time-bomb on the screen and present it as a major lead to the climax that your viewers will be paying close attention to the countdown sequence. I mean, jeez, its a critical component of the climax! Second, the special effects were very carefully produced and not too bad for a movie on this budget, but near the end it became obvious that the producers wanted to save money or beat a deadline by bypassing a few steps in the compositing and lighting departments. Everything went from pretty believable to obviously CGI with extremely plastic looking textures and poor green screen matting! Even those problems are forgivable if you end the movie by tying up all the loose ends in the plot you so carefully introduced in the first 80% of the film. Most viewers would then shrug off the editing and effects issues as the producers cutting some costs without effecting the story, but when you simply drop the loose ends without tying them up your viewers are left feeling cheated and abandoned.
After all the good they had built up and all the great impressions I had during the first 80% of the film, when the credits rolled I was left wondering what $#!@ happened! I am not a stupid person, in fact, I am highly technical and educated, and I am certainly not new to the world of cinema, but I was left totally confused by several things like: 1. If the Torus was completely destroyed absorbing the force of the nuclear blast, then obviously the mechanisms supporting the generation of the cloud cover were also destroyed, forcing an early end to the Torus's plans. If thats so, then why was it explained as being a conscious decision by the Torus? During the Engineers final presentation four months later, an audience member asked, "Why did the Torus stop terraforming the Earth after it disappeared?" And I thought, "Becuase it was completely !@#%#$ destroyed by a nuclear weapon, dummy!" But no, that wasn't the explanation at all?! 2. What ever happened between China and the US? I would think that China would deem the refusal of rights to co-study the Torus, the shooting of one of its top scientists in the heart, being given a whole 24 minutes notice that it better move its troops back, and finally the detonation of a tactical nuclear weapon within 100km of its borders without at least consulting it first would REALLY tick it off! I mean, jeez, if someone did that to us Americans it would be considered a total act of war and we'd have 250,000 Marines marching across their borders while we saturation bombed the $#!@#$ out of it within 48 hours! So... what ever HAPPENED?!?!? 3. What the hell happened to Captain Tower? I mean, he held a senior officer against orders by pointing a gun at his forehead at point-blank range! I'm no expert, but dude, I think our government would consider that a pretty serious offense and charge him with insubordination, treason, rape, and child molestation... wouldn't you? SOOOOO, what the heck HAAAAPEEENED?!?!? 4. OK so.. the pretty, super-intelligent, and tough female researcher somehow became impregnated while inside the Torus. Obviously, there wasn't time for anyone to be bumping' uglies while the thing prepared to wipe out all life, so how did that happened? OK, lets assume it was the Torus who planted the fetus inside there somehow... OK, so why did she thank the engineer at the end? Plus, why did she even look him up in the first place? "I'm pregnant with a possibly freakish alien life-form... wanna be the Daddy?" That simply HAD to be a tacked on "feel good" ending! I have like 40 other questions but I'm too frustrated and tired to mention them, but I am sure you get the point! Epoch is a perfect science fiction film, with excellent scripting, decent special effects, and a compelling story, and it lasts that way for the first three-quarters of the film, at which point it dies a horrible public death in a swarm of mediocrity and careless film making.
Not a terrible movie to rent, but if you have other choices, I'd recommend trying them first... unless you happen to like sitting on your couch, drooling on yourself while you stare at the credits like a befuddled brain-damaged monkey wondering what the heck just happened.