400 Days (2015) Poster

(2015)

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5/10
Outer Limits/Solaris Mashup on the Cheap
Cathex1 November 2015
Well, it wasn't terrible, and considering that the budget was obviously limited I was inclined to be slightly more lenient. I did find the plot somewhat entertaining, it reminded me of an episode of the outer limits or the twilight zone. The acting was fairly decent and the scripting was adequate. But there isn't enough here in the way of originality or ingenuity to make it shine.

The director does a pretty good job of pointing the camera. However, I generally think it's a bad idea to directly reference classic films made by genius directors unless your own film is at or near the same quality, because it seems like compensation. So the references to Kubrick through the use of slow tracking shots, deep focusing and a direct dialogue reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, were unjustified and annoying.

The film develops a story that has no logical explanation, interspersed with continuity errors. But these weren't severe. What was more irritating was that the ending seems intended to create suspense but it's actually just a cliché. Much like the night-vision POV shots towards the end, there was no real reason for it.

The film isn't terrible and it's entertaining enough for casual viewing. But it's far too much an example of someone trying on purpose to create a film thats supposed to be 'mind-boggling' and creepy just for the sake of it, throwing in too many stereotypes in a kind of aping manner.

The psychological break-down of the crew was little more than a lower quality imitation of films such as Solaris and it pretends at subtext, but produces none.

Like I said, I've seen far worse, the director seems fairly competent and the story was bizarre enough to be somewhat interesting. But it's certainly nothing to get excited about.
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3/10
Oh god, why did you choose that ending?
ashleywork1 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
So 400 days is about 4 "astronauts" who are going to be put in a simulation for 400 days to simulate long distanced space travel and the psychological effects this might have on the astronauts. Now instead of actually showing our protagonists slowly losing their minds in this simulation the film just says, "ain't nobody got time for that" and tries to rush to the "plot twist" as quickly as possible.

Now I bet you are wondering what exactly happens in between the beginning of the film and the end. Well I can summarise it in a couple of sentences for you. Our main characters go from being sane, calm and intelligent human being to insane and stupid human beings in the space of only 15 minutes. Well in film time it's more like 200-300 days but to the audience the change only happens over the course of 15 minutes. This doesn't give us enough time to connect with the protagonists, it doesn't give us enough time to understand what they are going through in their lives and it doesn't give us enough time to care about them and what will happen to them when they eventually go insane. I'm pretty sure the writers where either high or drunk when they thought this would pass for a good story.

Now enough of the boring protagonists lets talk about the ending because that's always fun. So our main characters find a guy who looks like he has been deprived of any oxygen and can't talk properly because of this. The man escapes from the ship and the crew find out that they have been losing oxygen for days and days now. So in a moment of panic they decide to leave the ship to figure out what's happening. They find that they are surrounded by dust and rock, after analysing the dust they find out that it's moon dust. So the crew leaves to go find people and figure out what has happened. After finding a creepy guy in a creepy town they find out that some explosion happened on the moon and then the planets oxygen depleted and moon dust was scattered on the earth? I'm not really sure what happened it was't explained very well. So one by one the crew members start to disappear until there was two left, the towns people insist that there was only ever two left. The towns folk try to chase our 2 last crew members to the simulation area underground. The crew members fight them off and a message is played in the simulation congratulating them on making it to 400 days and the screen fades to black.

There are a lot of things wrong with this ending so let me list a few of them here: 1. What actually happened to the moon and how does the moon being blown up drop the amount of oxygen on Earth? 2. Why didn't you just say it was all a simulation or a dream. There was plenty of proof in the film to suggest that it was a dream, hell the film looked like it was going to do that. 3. Why can some people in this town talk properly and others can't?

There's more issue with this film that I could get into but I would be here for days, in short the film is boring, has a rubbish plot, misses every opportunity to at least be interesting and has astronauts that aren't mentally stable enough to even be astronauts.
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5/10
Intriguing and Frustrating
claudio_carvalho11 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
The astronauts Theo (Brandon Routh), Emily (Caity Lotz), Dvorak (Dane Cook) and Bug (Ben Feldman) are locked in an underground facility imitating a spaceship for 400 days simulating the travel to a distant planet. The intent is to study the psychological effect caused by the long isolation period without contact or communication with the outside world. They experience hallucinations and weird noises on the outside and close to the day 400, they see a stranger in their ship. When the man flees, Theo and Bug leave the facility and they find outside world dusty, dark and desolate. They decide to walk to seek somebody and while Dvorak believes it is part of the experiment, Theo, Emily and Bug believe that something bad may happen on Earth.

"400 Days" is an intriguing thriller with an absolutely frustrating conclusion. There are flaws in the story (how a weak man like Bug is selected for such experience is probably the worst) but in general the film builds the mystery with an increasing tension. Unfortunately the lack of conclusion is a cold shower in the viewer. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Protegido: 400 Dias" ("Protected: 400 Days")
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2/10
*spoilers* Movie about nothing
kingramze1 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
You will regret ever wasting your time on this movie. It starts nowhere and ends nowhere.

I've seen decent movies about a group of people locked in isolation for months on end -- this was not one of them.

I've seen decent TV series shows and movies where people thought they were in simulations, but weren't... and the reverse. This is not one of them.

*Spoilers*

The movie begins promisingly enough with good actors and a decent premise -- a mission to simulate manned space flight for 400 days. The "astronauts" climb into a bunker underground. They're told not to come out early or their commander will ensure their careers are over.

Long story short, they leave early - to find a desolate world inhabited by crazy people... or maybe they're aliens... or hallucinations. We don't know. I bet neither do the writers.
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1/10
Written by a six-year-old
trey-yancy-572-76354730 October 2019
It is impossible to know where to start when describing this utterly idiotic movie. The writer obviously has no clue whatsoever about how things work. (A drunk who freaks out over a girlfriend is fit for a simulated Mars mission? A simulated near-fatal issue during launch, as if this were a training exercise rather than a simulated flight? Being told to go to bed ten minutes into the flight? Wandering around the ship as if they had never seen it before? The head of the program threatening the careers of the astronauts a minute before they board?)

Honestly, if millennials get a bad rap it if because of films like this. The writer has no knowledge about the subject matter, no understanding of adulthood, and did no homework whatsoever. How someone could ever secure a budget for this or pay for the actors, three of whom are recognizable - including the star of a hollywood blockbuster - is beyond understanding.

What we have here is Ed Wood with a budget and no monsters.
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1/10
Just because you can make a movie doesn't mean that you should.
Diane-73676631 October 2015
A perfectly terribly movie with little, if anything, in the way of redeeming value. From a script that portrays characters acting in completely unbelievable ways to the tired old cliché of "let's all split up"this movie is a complete waste of one's time. Four prospective astronauts who in real life couldn't qualify for Walmart greeters get buried in the ground for a year and when they come out the world has changed. Apparently it has all changed into one giant D- grade horror movie cliché. Poorly written dialog, clichéd characters, and a plot written by Dunning Kruger Inc all add up to a completely wasted portion of your life that you will never... never get back.

There is zero resolution to the movie and every single "horror" moment is telegraphed like a 1900's Western Union operator working overtime. A good chunk of the non-action takes place in a post-apocalyptic dive bar which is where I imagine the director and screen writer likely spent much of their misspent cinematic education.

The only real horror here is how a group of people can spend months (days??) of their time producing such a completely worthless pile of steaming celluloid and still have the temerity to put their names upon the completed work.
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The writer and director Matt Osterman deserves 400 Days in prison for this crap
Dr_Sagan30 December 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Let's cut to the chase: Avoid this movie at all costs.

I don't know about the 400 days but that was most certainly 90 minutes of our lives we'll never get back.

What seems initially like a good premise with unlimited possibilities it is transformed in a lame and boring Carpenter-ish c-class movie that leads nowhere.

Sometimes after a slow boring movie you might get a rewarding and interesting ending, so your time spend not to feel wasted.

Unfortunately this is not the case here. The ending is as ambiguous as it could possibly be.

I call this type of movies "The 3 minutes more movies" and includes other crappy ones like "Another Earth". What do I mean by that 3 minutes more? I mean movies that the ending would be crystal clear if the movie lasted 3 minutes more (or at least one in this case). What happened really is a mystery only for the audience who feels cheated. The crew of the simulation will know the truth soon enough. The audience never will. It's not an ending to interpret or to start a conversation about it. It's just like they ran out of film a couple of minutes sort before the actual ending.

The cast consists of likable actors including Brandon (Superman Returns) Routh but were misused. The production soon feels cheap and the pace is boring. Initially you expect something to happen but soon enough you give up and just wait for the conclusion which in this case...there isn't any.

Overall: The writer and director Matt Osterman deserves at least 400 days in prison for this crap or even better his whole life far far away from cameras of any kind.
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3/10
Killing time
TheLittleSongbird7 January 2019
Despite it not being particularly well received here, '400 Days' intrigued me with its idea and it looked and sounded like an ambitious film. The cast didn't sound like a bad one on paper either. Was really hoping that it would be better than indicated in the reviews, wanting to go against the grain with being so impressed by the idea, and that it would even be good somewhat instead of another waste of potential (having seen quite enough of those recently). Am not trying to be a snob or anything, it is just my genuine thoughts.

'400 Days' sadly was exactly that, a waste of potential. A shame because when it first started it actually pleasantly surprised me, even if the production values were not exactly great. Did actually consider forgiving that, because there have been instances of production values not being great but the film succeeds in most other areas. Then '400 Days' lost its way badly, becoming the complete opposite of what promise the first part showed and with so many problems already covered very well by others. Very frustrating and borderline insulting at its worst. Am actually feeling really bad about saying this.

Beginning with the good things, as said already '400 Days' started off promising. It was compelling and intriguing with an air of tense mystery about it. Parts were well shot and showed a cinematographer using techniques clearly influenced by films that were genre landmarks and ground-breaking.

Also found the cast not too shabby and thought they really tried, doing what they could with material utterly beneath them.

However, the low budget and rushed production does show in the production values. The film looks very drab, the sets are very simplistic, too much of the editing in the latter parts of the film is choppy and some of it even looks unfinished. The music didn't hinder the atmosphere and didn't sound cheap, but would have made much of an impression with more subtle, better balanced and less predictable sound editing. The direction is not incompetent but a case of someone biting off more than they could chew and running before walking.

This is not an example of a film not trying. If anything, '400 Days' tries too hard and one respects the ambition, over-ambition in this case, more than the execution. It does completely fall apart too early, the suspense and any atmosphere completely goes and replaced by sluggish pacing, no surprises and senseless character behaviours that insult the intelligence and makes endear to the character far less to the point you can't. Parts are too expostion-heavy and the dialogue throughout is ham-handed and clunky, especially in these parts which don't say anything and sound like gibberish, and the final act fails to make sense to the point of incoherence. And yes, the worst asset is the ending, abrupt and ambiguous are understatements, in fact it is a complete non-event and with a big truck-load of questions and no answers. It gave the sense that the film was released incomplete.

Overall, initially intriguing but underwhelming at the end of the day. 3/10 Bethany Cox
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2/10
Grmsch, Wasted potential.
idontdodrugs31 October 2015
OK. So it's about a science experiment to investigate the effects of prolonged time of isolation of a group in tight space as preparation for space travel, where long periods of no contact with the outside world are expected. Exactly 400 days of said isolation.

They pretty much cast a whole lot of actors from the hit TV series Arrow and The Flash, namely Brandon Routh, Carly Loitz (which I lovingly call 'The Chin'), and Tom Cavanagh.

These actors as well as the endearing premise caused me to watch that movie. And....my hopes pretty much fell apart.

The movie follows a long the typical low budget mystery and 'horror' plots of the 'isolated people' genre. Nothing, and I mean nothing original here with regards to script and direction.

The whole movie gives off the vibes of a Outer Limits episode. The sets feel very cheap. The story leads to nothing. No pay off at all. And at a runtime of 90 minutes it still felt very boring at long periods. Flashbacks try to establish some deeper characterization. But again, no relevance at all for the non-existent character development.

There is only two positive things I can say about the movie. First, the actors try at least a little bit (Brandon Routh and Tom Cavanagh are most often likable, even if they have absolutely nothing to work with from the script). Second, the premise remains interesting. But executed in such a way, it just is a giant case of wasted potential.

As a TV episode or short movie, OK, but with these 90 minutes, you should do something else...watch like 2 Outer Limits episodes.
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7/10
Surprisingly good...
adam_man00002 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
!!!Spoilers!!! So keep in mind I watched this movie with a 3 out 10 alcoholic buzz. I think that's what affects this review for the better.

So after watching the trailer for this movie, I was excited to see what it was really about. The trailer really set it up to be an exciting thriller.

So as I was watching this, there were a few questions that popped into my mind.

Q1. What's really going on here? Are they really doing this exercise or is it made up.

A1. The female doctor keeps injecting them with "Immune system boosters" but you never see here taking them at all. Is she drugging them? I did feel like this movie kept the characters in a ship underground. I never suspected that they left earth at all.

Q2. What's up with the moon? Is it gone or not? and if so, why, when it shows the moon, does it look like there is an icy glaze on the sky obscuring the moon from sight.

A2. This was a serious plot hole in the story. You never get a definitive yes or no on what's going on and the whole movie you are just watching events unfold for the sheer sake of watching it. Due to my buzz, It was easily overlooked. And for there to be moon dust all over the ground is confusing now that I think back on it. Moon dust travelled that far in space and settled on the earth. How does this deplete oxygen and how are people still living in that town if this is the case.

Q3. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE ENDING?! A3. The ending leads you to believe that it was all in their head the whole time. Because when the hatch opens up, sunlight comes through when only seconds ago, there was no sunlight at all. There had to have been 4 people the whole movie, otherwise the 2 survivors would have been crazy the entire film even before going into the ship. You never know what happens to the other 2. You are led to believe that they were killed off but you never actually see the act itself.

Note: Tom Cavanagh (<- Think I misspelled his name.) Superb performance as a villain. He has garnered a lot of attention since his role as a villain on the TV show "The Flash" and he definitely goes down in my book as a great actor. He was probably the best thing about this movie if you ask me.

All in all, I watched this movie start to finish with an overall good feeling despite all the 1.0 reviews. There are a lot of plot holes and unanswered questions but I think having those questions in the back of my mind is what kept me watching despite the fact they never got answered. Would I recommend this movie? Yes, watch it one time at least. I might not go back and watch it again, its worth 1 watch, then forget about it.
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2/10
The movie was OK. The end was not.
mir_sasha6 December 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This is ridiculous. This is my first ever review here and Im doing it only because Im so f.... emotionally unstable right now because of this crap.

The movie is OK. I enjoyed the excitement, the setting, the acting was more then fine for a low budget movie and to tell you the truth, I was really happy to finally find something that can keep my interest more then 20 min.

The problem with the movie is the f... ending. There is basically none. You are left with 1000 questions and no answers. You are left in some kind of limbo where you are not sure if you want to cry or throw something at the screen.

We have absolutely no way of knowing anything about how this ended. The door opens, we see something that might be light coming in and.... the end. But this answers nothing. And there are so many other questions that just are left hanging.

Think if you read a book. A crime novel. Now imagine that we follow a cop who is investigating a murder. Thru whole book, you get clues about what happened, whats going on and the writer really builds up the expectations for the ending. And then book ends. Just like that.

This movie is like that. It just f.... ended. I think Im gonna go cry now.
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8/10
Not all that bad...
revloveution1 November 2015
Most of the reviews for this are pretty bad. All in all, the movie was ... pretty bad. But I do have to say it does play some decent mind games. Without giving any spoilers, I thought it was interesting, and I like that there's a sense of "Not Knowing" that stays with you after watching the movie. Anything that gives me that sensation these days (After watching almost everything) is potentially... decent.

I'd say it was a little similar to "Moon" with a little bit of "Event Horizon" and "Sphere" tied in... and although I thought it was a bit long - I wanted to give it some justice for not being totally awful (by giving it a few stars in a semi positive review).
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7/10
A good B-Movie
rich-stryker11 November 2015
This is a B-movie but a good B-movie. There was no sex, no nudity, very little swearing and the fight scenes couldn't be called violent. Everything was implied. Having three actors that play superheroes and villains gave the movie some hope of success. Unlike Chris Evans who I think has soiled his acting career with a series of bad movies like Snowpiercer, Brandon Ruth, Caity Lotz, and Tom Cavanagh have done something outside of comics that shows them capable of acting something different. The fact that 3/4 of the movie happens within 3 rooms may be a bit frustrating to some. The ending may leave you frustrated but that's okay.
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2/10
If you watch this, when you are done, you will wish you didn't.
odorous1 November 2015
The best part of this crap was going "oh, I remember him from that movie" and "wasn't he in that Dylan dog movie" calling this pile of trash a b- flic would take some of the quality away from actual b-flics. 70% boring, 20% tired cliché and 10% credits. The writers/directors/producers were like " lets take the idea of the movie Moon, crap all over it, regurgitate some failed movies of the past, eat it, then crap out 400 days." When I had the unfortunate experience of wasting 1.3 gig of bandwidth on this travesty, I did not know I was going to be investing 100 minutes on what turned out to be horrible 80's "c" style movie. Money will be lost, people will be fired. It seems like Brandon Routh is doing everything in his power to ruin his career. Do yourself a favor, go watch "Moon" instead.
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4/10
For all of its flaws (of which it has legion) I still rather enjoyed it!
jozefkruszynski31 October 2015
Maybe I'm just a sucker for terrible movies, I have watched many, but I feel that the 2 other reviews here are from viewers who hold on to a candle of a perfect movie within any given genre, and that anything that goes against that can only be considered a failure and a waste of time for all involved...

This is my first review, I don't have the writing skills that some reviewers have, but I do have an honest opinion...

Do not watch this movie unless you have, like me, exhausted almost all other options. Watch this movie if you have a few hours to kill, and you want to watch a good old fashioned B-movie. Yes the story is contrived and, yes, the characters are flawed, and HECK yes, the time-line and 3rd act make little to no sense. But I for one enjoyed it for what it sets out from the start to be. A poorly written, clichéd, homage to the B-movies of old.

If the previous reviewers really think that this movie was a total waste of everyones time, then I would like to see their fantastically scripted masterpieces.

Watch this film if you have hours to kill, you might find that you enjoy it in the same way that you enjoy a bacon sandwich, fleeting, momentary, and utterly forgettable.
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1/10
Truly Awful
spacebwoy17 December 2015
This is one of the worst films I have seen. Terrible script, full of plot inconsistencies. The film has no direction, and the set design is terrible. In a number of places it tries to gain some credibility by referencing Kubrick amongst others. Clearly there was no shortage of funding but a complete lack of any art leaves it a dull, uninspired waste of time and effort.

None of the characters would have passed even an initial psychological examination. They are all too emotionally unbalanced to even have been considered for their mission.

Although the plot doesn't rely on people behaving idiotically to drive it forward, all of the character interactions are due to the protagonists utter childishness.
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1/10
400 Days of Awful!
snoopypuppeh13 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
They should have called this movie '91 Minutes of Boredom'! At least it wasn't longer... that would have been the real horror.

A very weak movie, too weak to even to be considered B-grade, with a poorly written plot. It's sad, because it had such promise, but completely misses the mark with whatever it was trying to achieve. It appears that even the writers gave up before the ending, because there wasn't one! Characters seemed to disappeared never to been heard from again... literally... what happened to them? Fired? Quit? To drunk to show up on the set? Doesn't really matter anyway, because most of the acting was sub-par even to be compared with a high-school drama club production.

Continuity seems to have been left somewhere on the editing room floor, along with the director's self-esteem. Imagine, putting your real name on this piece of rubbish for everyone to see.

Save your money for a nice stiff drink. At least if you're drunk you'll have a good excuse for mistakenly wandering into a theatre while this movie is playing!
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5/10
Has holes but also has some pretty good acting, not the best but..
dagallop13 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Starting in the manner this movie does leaves you with some nagging questions. Having some of the erroneous events taking place the way they do add more of those nagging questions. Unfortunately there are some issues that never get addressed and frankly the ending just adds insult to injury, however, I cannot say that I didn't like the ending, I actually respect the writers/directors decision to leave it 'out there'. It really followed a lot of the plot lines so it wasn't entirely unexpected. However, it doesn't mean that you have to have an ending that fills all of the cracks or even leaves the viewer smiling. So many movies follow the happy ending that it becomes a basic expectation, so you could even see this as a breath of life into the real flexibility of the movie maker.

I couldn't decide if 5 was a little bit of a punishment since it has some pretty good acting in it, some pretty good cinematography and sound. Don't expect any, and I mean any, special effects in this movie. But enjoy the movie for the questions that it sets out to leave you with.

My final comment is: take pleasure in a movie that you walk away from thinking; did they, were they, could they... to name a few of the questions you will have.
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4/10
Starts with a good premise but goes downhill to a place you'll hate it
tecnogaming12 December 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Stranded or isolated group of people movies are common trend these days, with all those reality shows and experiment shows.

What better than to make a movie about depth space mission as a reality show experiment?

Enter 400 days. As the title of the movie says, a group of 4 people must spend 400 days isolated in what appears to be a ship but it's actually a bunker.

The movie consist on 2 acts, in the first one we see a psychological thriller in which the group must face with the fact they are isolated and need to come to terms with each other and solve the obstacles to progress. It's slow-paced but good, the acting is appropriate and the slow parts are necessary to balance the shocker parts.

This is all good but the problem I have is with the second part, this is were the movie does a transformation, it goes from being a solid 6 points movie to a somewhat bad adaptation of a poorly written B-movie, with poorly written B-movie actors included.

Watching this transformation unfold on screen is tedious, sad and disgusting and by the time the end comes, the whole experience reach a climax in which the viewer is left with a WTF moment (and not a good one) and the writers pretending to be smart but showing that they really don't care about the story or the viewer.

It's something like, this is good, what else could we do with it.. yeah I don't know... okay, let's cut the movie right there... bang, titles..

Suffice to say the movie does not get more than a 4 and that's high enough and you should skip it, don't say I didn't warned you.

If you're looking for good SCIFI, go see the reverse of this movie, go watch Infini.
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Why Did I Watch This?
mrblelover1 October 2016
I must be a masochist because I almost wanted to watch it again to figure out what was going on and if I missed some vital clues to figure out the ending of this low budget fiasco. I like what one reviewer said: Watch Moon it was a lot more interesting . My criteria for a decent movie is that I'll add it to my library and watch it again in the future, I almost felt guilty passing it along in a yard-sale for .50 cents . It really did steal from many other movies: Moon, 2001 Space Odyssey and OMG I even saw a "morlock" from the old Time Machine movie .Really as my son would say : It was just silly. Final analysis: Avoid Like The Plague!!!
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6/10
Needed an answer
jtindahouse11 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Movies like '400 Days' are hard to judge. They're hard to judge because you never truly know just how smart the filmmakers actually are. The whole thing is a mass of confusion for both the characters and the audience. We are never entirely sure what is going on, we can only guess in the meantime and wait for the movie to reveal itself. However in this film it never happens. We are left with no answers and only the choice to make up our own mind. Now this is all well and good as long as writer/director Matt Osterman actually knew the answer while making the film and left a plausible route for us to come to the correct solution. Afterall, a puzzle with no actual answer isn't a lot of fun. For all I know he absolutely did do this and I'm just not smart enough to work it out. But as it stands I think I was confused enough near the end that either answer Osterman could have given us would have been shocking enough to justify revealing. This is what leads me to believe he may not have had a genuine answer in mind.

The ending aside though I would have to say overall I enjoyed the film. The premise was an interesting one that would be hard to be entirely bored by. The cast performed adequately, including Dane Cook who I was mildly surprised to see come on screen I'll admit. I've seen the odd mention of a 'Twilight Zone' feel about it and I would certainly have to agree with that. I'm not sure how often 'The Twilight Zone' left ambiguous endings but never mind. I think the ending is where a lot of the negativity surrounding the film is coming from and that's a real shame, because there's an original tale being told here that probably deserves a better reception than it's getting at the moment.
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3/10
No ending
msamuelkingston6 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I watched this with my wife, the story was entertaining and we were left guessing all the way through as to where they would take the ending. There isn't one. Lazy writing. It doesn't even leave you with an option to decide for yourself between two possible choices of what could be happening. It just ends. No hints to a second film, just nothing as if they got bored writing it and just filmed what they already had. Shame it could have been a good film. Each part of the story had something that needed explaining, but nothing ever gets explained. The film is basically a list of questions followed by no answers. You are left feeling very disappointed as it has such potential and does keep you interested right up until the end. I would love to hear what the idea was behind the story, but I don't think even the writers knew. If you are the kind of person who falls asleep near the end of a film and never catches the ending, you will enjoy this film.
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8/10
Liked it!
ohbila4 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
The movie is fantastic, refreshing. The plot is original and the movie well acted. There's lots of suspense and tension. For me, a great plot is when at the end you say "it could truly happen"... And this movie has it! Having said that there are some downsides as well. Those quasi zombie humans that wander around and all of the cannibalism and that sort of things are a little to much, but the overall plot is nice.

Having said that, I can't understand the (very) bad reviews and the 4 stars. Give it a try, it's well worth it!

(Sorry for the next few lines, because now comes the part where I am told that my review is not 10 lines long. But what if what I have to say is not 10 lines long!???? C'mon IMDb!!!! I then have to ad some crap to the review just to fill in the review guidelines. A shame)
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6/10
Ultimately a profound frustration, but...
jrarichards8 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A long-established and familiar circumstance encountered by those watching a film for, say, 90 minutes and not actually being sure what has been going on at all is that this can equally well reflect the fact that: a) this has been a bad film, or b) this has been a good film! Those watching "400 days" for its first 15 or so minutes are not going to be in much doubt as to which of these two categories it falls into. As the storyline involving a prolonged underground simulation of a space mission is being set up, and as the "module" is first entered and "blastoff" takes place, this piece continues to wear its cheapness like a suit of armour...

However, beyond that (as the days leading up to that magic figure of 400 continue to pass), things (notably interactions between the 4 reasonably well-portrayed crew-members) start to get a bit more interesting, though they remain relatively predictable. If one doesn't look too closely, the model ship seems authentic enough, and characters even interact reasonably well, if with occasional lapses in logic visible.

But there then follows a quite impressive plot twist in which we (like the crew) become extremely disoriented as to whether we are witnessing a simulation, a mass hallucination or example of "space sickness", or a real catastrophic happening on a planetary scale. At this point the film starts to seem like some kind of cross between "The Road" and "10 Cloverfield Lane" (with a touch of "Solaris" thrown in), and while "400 Days" is nowhere near as good as any of these, it does nevertheless - in its way - achieve an eerie, claustrophobic and really pretty unique feel that is in a very real sense terrifying.

Thus, close to the film's ending, it is quite remarkable how the viewer can feel when a return to the underground "spacecraft" finally proves possible for members of the crew. When does claustrophobia inside become less severe than that outside? Well, right here in this film, in fact. Somewhere down the line the makers (for the record that's mainly one Matt Osterman) must be doing something right to engender such emotion.

Sadly, like literally thousands of films we have seen before, this one refuses to enlighten us fully as it reaches its end (notwithstanding superficial appearances to the contrary), and that is annoying indeed. Though again, the fact that I still find myself speculating and pondering (and convincing myself as to the real situation) two days after watching, suggests that this effort does have its "certain something", notwithstanding its mainly low production values.

On the whole, then, my advice (and certainly my advice to sci-fi fans) is give it a go - while not of course expecting too much.
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1/10
So terrible that I endured the 'Forgot my password' process just to leave this warning...
mr-philhenderson22 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I was willing to put up with 89 minutes of the low-budget quality of this 'film' just so I could see what apocalyptic calamity had befallen the earth during the crew's 400 days. In the last minute the director and the rest of the incompetents implicated in this pathetic attempt at storytelling just gave up and left the viewer with a whole lot of nothing when we would have taken almost anything. Nothing endings only work well if crafted by skilled storytellers. Inception had a great nothing ending. For his sake, I hope this director just ran out of money – at least that would be a reason which would compute. You're not being 'cool' 'edgy' or 'neat' by ending it this way. Netflix even got in on the scam by claiming in the description that the crew weren't sure if the 400 day test might actually be real. This was never the illusion they were dealing with. Anyway, I guess I'm the fool for not checking here for reviews first. Fooled me once...
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