Set design / artistic design ...
This really comes up first in my mind. What has happened here? There are touch-screen pads but also ancient keyboard with CRT screens as if it was the 80s "Alien" Nostromo. There are holograms and seemingly face to face communication between mars and earth (still i think 20 minutes delay) .. but on the other hand, there are crappy CCTV that are just meant to malfunction. (in glorious VGA, because we can build spaceships of that magnitude but no cameras in 4k or 8k it seems) There is AI and automation, but then we see an engine room that fits in the Titanic with steam punk valves and a boiler of sorts.
While not particularly "bad" .. it is an odd mismatch that looks / feels like the production team just got "anything" and tried to build a set, but everything looks out of place and more like bad cosplay.
Add to that the cavernous rooms illuminated by sometimes no light source at all. WHO builds a ship that is in perpetual darkness? Also - is that a second hand ship? It looks like a highschool after 20 years of "use" and minimal maintenance and cleanup.
My little rant aside .. i love Claudia Black, but her performance here feels phoned in, flat and just lazy - it does fit with the rest of the "crews" performance though ... perfectly boring.
As for the story .. sadly, it is full of tropes and archetype characters. All types of characters that are a liability for even passing out fast food, mental wrecks without any skills to be near a space mission. And that is a problem .. none of the characters is a believable scientist. It is a soap-opera of incompetence in space .. hence not making me root for any of them, or the mission.
The movie wants to be deeper than it is. Even a typical "monster of the week" episode of X-files is MUCH deeper, philosophically and also character wise.
It is a 1 star from me, because i am almost angry at how bad it is.
This really comes up first in my mind. What has happened here? There are touch-screen pads but also ancient keyboard with CRT screens as if it was the 80s "Alien" Nostromo. There are holograms and seemingly face to face communication between mars and earth (still i think 20 minutes delay) .. but on the other hand, there are crappy CCTV that are just meant to malfunction. (in glorious VGA, because we can build spaceships of that magnitude but no cameras in 4k or 8k it seems) There is AI and automation, but then we see an engine room that fits in the Titanic with steam punk valves and a boiler of sorts.
While not particularly "bad" .. it is an odd mismatch that looks / feels like the production team just got "anything" and tried to build a set, but everything looks out of place and more like bad cosplay.
Add to that the cavernous rooms illuminated by sometimes no light source at all. WHO builds a ship that is in perpetual darkness? Also - is that a second hand ship? It looks like a highschool after 20 years of "use" and minimal maintenance and cleanup.
My little rant aside .. i love Claudia Black, but her performance here feels phoned in, flat and just lazy - it does fit with the rest of the "crews" performance though ... perfectly boring.
As for the story .. sadly, it is full of tropes and archetype characters. All types of characters that are a liability for even passing out fast food, mental wrecks without any skills to be near a space mission. And that is a problem .. none of the characters is a believable scientist. It is a soap-opera of incompetence in space .. hence not making me root for any of them, or the mission.
The movie wants to be deeper than it is. Even a typical "monster of the week" episode of X-files is MUCH deeper, philosophically and also character wise.
It is a 1 star from me, because i am almost angry at how bad it is.