This film takes a lot for granted. Surely the audience will "get" this right? No, it's just pretentious. The closest one can liken this to is watching 2001: A Space Odyssey without reading the book first. Anyone who has done so understands that while that movie was a milestone in cinematography and had some great moments... it was some of the worst story-telling to ever hit the screen. Like 2001, this is a director's complete failure to connect with his audience.
Katee must have been pretty desperate to agree to star in this self-absorbed scriptmess about a human and A.I. exploring Mars. Her character is one-dimensional emo, making the viewer wonder why this individual would ever be placed in such an extremely important Mission Control spot to begin with.
Let's call out that the emperor has no clothes: the 2001-style ending was a sloppy venture into messy CGI and an voice-over very-quick-attempt at explaining what had just happened. That is never good film making, regardless of budget constraints.
Then there's the elephant in the room: conceptually, let's discuss the idea of an animal rights activist protesting abuse of animals... by setting a zoo on fire. Yeah, it's like that. Just. that. stupid.
I love cerebral sci fi. I'm not a fan of pure-action anything. But this isn't cerebral; it is simple failure of the writer/director to properly tell the story. Not that there's much to the story; it's been done before by far better films (and with more sensible conclusions). This film is simplistic in concept, sloppy in execution, with overall failed presentation.
Yes, we get the story, duh. The whole concept could be summarized in one short sentence (which I won't do here to avoid spoilers, but was sooo tempted). This could have been done in a 15 minute short and achieved more than this drudgery of wasted screen time.
I was going to give it 3 stars just to be generous but decided in this case that my time dumped in watching this drivel warrants no generosity. I encourage would-be viewers to believe the numerous negative reviews and realize this is a story-telling bomb that relies on the presence of "Starbuck" to even get off the ground. The glowing "reviews" present here? Be suspect. Be very suspect.
Save yourself a couple of hours and avoid this painful cinematic dud with its ridiculous oh-my-goodness special-effects! ending. Don't be fooled by the sugar-coated reviews: this is by no means an intelligent nor well presented film.
Katee must have been pretty desperate to agree to star in this self-absorbed scriptmess about a human and A.I. exploring Mars. Her character is one-dimensional emo, making the viewer wonder why this individual would ever be placed in such an extremely important Mission Control spot to begin with.
Let's call out that the emperor has no clothes: the 2001-style ending was a sloppy venture into messy CGI and an voice-over very-quick-attempt at explaining what had just happened. That is never good film making, regardless of budget constraints.
Then there's the elephant in the room: conceptually, let's discuss the idea of an animal rights activist protesting abuse of animals... by setting a zoo on fire. Yeah, it's like that. Just. that. stupid.
I love cerebral sci fi. I'm not a fan of pure-action anything. But this isn't cerebral; it is simple failure of the writer/director to properly tell the story. Not that there's much to the story; it's been done before by far better films (and with more sensible conclusions). This film is simplistic in concept, sloppy in execution, with overall failed presentation.
Yes, we get the story, duh. The whole concept could be summarized in one short sentence (which I won't do here to avoid spoilers, but was sooo tempted). This could have been done in a 15 minute short and achieved more than this drudgery of wasted screen time.
I was going to give it 3 stars just to be generous but decided in this case that my time dumped in watching this drivel warrants no generosity. I encourage would-be viewers to believe the numerous negative reviews and realize this is a story-telling bomb that relies on the presence of "Starbuck" to even get off the ground. The glowing "reviews" present here? Be suspect. Be very suspect.
Save yourself a couple of hours and avoid this painful cinematic dud with its ridiculous oh-my-goodness special-effects! ending. Don't be fooled by the sugar-coated reviews: this is by no means an intelligent nor well presented film.