'Settlers' follows a formula that is quite popular these days.
You take popular social and political ideas and try to disguise your empty shell of a film as a horror or a thriller with sci-fi elements. I've seen this done before, 'The Power (2021)', 'For All Mankind' (2019), 'Shadow in the Cloud' (2020), 'Amulet' (2020) are good examples of this. This is mostly done to ensure critical acclaim and some film festival awards.
There is a setting, but there is no story. This is why we are not given any details whatsoever, just a vague explanation of what supposedly is going on. They set up a mystery but then abandon it because there is nothing there. It's just another basic metaphor for growing up and moving into adult life.
Thus, they don't really care if you buy the whole Mars thing with the breathable atmosphere (inside a magic dome), a huge Earth in the sky, messed up gravity, perfect plants, vegetables, cloning pigs from a single specimen, etc. They don't care about the world. This is not a sci-fi film. So we don't need to know who these people are, why they are on Mars, and what is going on in general.
The core is as simple as evil men. Men are the scourge not only of the Earth but Mars as well.
Up to around 50 minutes into the film, I didn't see any problems with it whatsoever. I thought there would be a twist, and I would've appreciated even an unoriginal one. But bad luck for me.
The dialogue is fine, the acting is done well, some of the scenes are memorable, but they cannot exist outside of an actual story. It would've been fine as a background to our characters moving along the story. But again, there is none.
Many things they set up just get abandoned, like the safe scene. They also wanted to have a GERTY-like character from Moon (2009), but its motivation is unclear since it doesn't talk, and we can't know for sure is it just a tool or it's actually sentient.
Besides, I'd appreciate it a little more if it wasn't so slow and long.
In any case, there is no reason to watch this film unless you're a social justice activist.
You take popular social and political ideas and try to disguise your empty shell of a film as a horror or a thriller with sci-fi elements. I've seen this done before, 'The Power (2021)', 'For All Mankind' (2019), 'Shadow in the Cloud' (2020), 'Amulet' (2020) are good examples of this. This is mostly done to ensure critical acclaim and some film festival awards.
There is a setting, but there is no story. This is why we are not given any details whatsoever, just a vague explanation of what supposedly is going on. They set up a mystery but then abandon it because there is nothing there. It's just another basic metaphor for growing up and moving into adult life.
Thus, they don't really care if you buy the whole Mars thing with the breathable atmosphere (inside a magic dome), a huge Earth in the sky, messed up gravity, perfect plants, vegetables, cloning pigs from a single specimen, etc. They don't care about the world. This is not a sci-fi film. So we don't need to know who these people are, why they are on Mars, and what is going on in general.
The core is as simple as evil men. Men are the scourge not only of the Earth but Mars as well.
Up to around 50 minutes into the film, I didn't see any problems with it whatsoever. I thought there would be a twist, and I would've appreciated even an unoriginal one. But bad luck for me.
The dialogue is fine, the acting is done well, some of the scenes are memorable, but they cannot exist outside of an actual story. It would've been fine as a background to our characters moving along the story. But again, there is none.
Many things they set up just get abandoned, like the safe scene. They also wanted to have a GERTY-like character from Moon (2009), but its motivation is unclear since it doesn't talk, and we can't know for sure is it just a tool or it's actually sentient.
Besides, I'd appreciate it a little more if it wasn't so slow and long.
In any case, there is no reason to watch this film unless you're a social justice activist.