Holy cow, what a steaming hot mess this movie is. It somehow manages to feel simultaneously confusing, boring, cerebral in a terrible and condescending way, and extraordinarily amateurish.
I'm not really sure I managed to follow the plot. It starts with a manned mission to Mars in the near-future that goes awry for unknown reasons, moves on to what is basically a one-woman show about an earth-based astronaut (think drone program , but in space) working with an advanced AI to investigate what went wrong during that mission, and finishes with scenes that I think are meant to suggest a 2001-ish symbolism concept.
But honestly my understanding is based upon a lot of guesswork. It feels incomplete because if I did understand the basic plot correctly it is just filled to the brim with plot holes and bizarre assumptions. And the last twenty minutes is so dull that I fell asleep.
I would just avoid the movie.
364 Reviews
The last 20 minutes made no sense, or did any of it?
fivish-113 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
So I was following it until the Earth blew up, or did it? Then she died or did she and then she was in the cube or was she there all along or previously on Earth and was she a human or an android and did this change? And the ending, what was that about?
Mission to the unknown
TheLittleSongbird15 October 2018
'2036 Origin Unknown' actually sounded pretty interesting. The low rating and lukewarm at best reviews here and much of the internet made me not sure as to whether it would be good, but there were some great ideas here and the concept sounded like the film would be good intriguing stuff if done right.
After seeing it, '2036 Unknown Origin' to me was not a terrible film, it has its moments. When it comes to recent low budget recent viewings it is nowhere near close to being one of the worst. A large part of me though was rather disappointed, another example of a film with great ideas and concept and just as great potential but none of them properly lived up to, not completely wasted but this should have been much more. The not so enthusiastic critical reception is understandable though while sharing a lot of the criticisms directed against it didn't find it that bad.
From personal opinion, it did have some atmosphere in the sets, an effective visual claustrophobia and the photography was quite nice, for low budget this could have fared much worse. It does start off well, it is intriguing, sets things up nicely and is not too badly paced.
The acting was also better than average, with a more than credible lead performance from Katee Sackhoff who had the hard task of carrying much of the film with not much support. Her character was one that didn't annoy or bore me and there was effort made to develop her. Julie Cox and Steven Cree, added in apparently during post-production, are also fine.
However, '2036 Origin Unknown's' main problem is the story. It does feel dragged out, like a short film stretched to feature, and gets over-complicated as a result of having too many ideas/areas and not enough of them being fully explored, meaning that there is a lack of clarity. This is not a case of not trying, more a case of trying too hard. The ending is just weird and impossible to make sense of, also not feeling much of an ending. The sound is also off, being too loud and constant and tending to be favoured over the dialogue.
Ray Fearon is pretty forgettable here and his character is just moving story forward plot device material. The direction is not incompetent but uninspired and shows a lack of experience. The over-reliance-on-exposition script doesn't flow very well and just feels half-baked and wordy in a way not always easy to understand. The special effects are very ropy, they don't blend well and the proportions can be inconsistent.
Overall, had great potential and Sackhoff especially makes it watchable but suffers from dullness and being over-complicated and half-baked. 4/10 Bethany Cox
After seeing it, '2036 Unknown Origin' to me was not a terrible film, it has its moments. When it comes to recent low budget recent viewings it is nowhere near close to being one of the worst. A large part of me though was rather disappointed, another example of a film with great ideas and concept and just as great potential but none of them properly lived up to, not completely wasted but this should have been much more. The not so enthusiastic critical reception is understandable though while sharing a lot of the criticisms directed against it didn't find it that bad.
From personal opinion, it did have some atmosphere in the sets, an effective visual claustrophobia and the photography was quite nice, for low budget this could have fared much worse. It does start off well, it is intriguing, sets things up nicely and is not too badly paced.
The acting was also better than average, with a more than credible lead performance from Katee Sackhoff who had the hard task of carrying much of the film with not much support. Her character was one that didn't annoy or bore me and there was effort made to develop her. Julie Cox and Steven Cree, added in apparently during post-production, are also fine.
However, '2036 Origin Unknown's' main problem is the story. It does feel dragged out, like a short film stretched to feature, and gets over-complicated as a result of having too many ideas/areas and not enough of them being fully explored, meaning that there is a lack of clarity. This is not a case of not trying, more a case of trying too hard. The ending is just weird and impossible to make sense of, also not feeling much of an ending. The sound is also off, being too loud and constant and tending to be favoured over the dialogue.
Ray Fearon is pretty forgettable here and his character is just moving story forward plot device material. The direction is not incompetent but uninspired and shows a lack of experience. The over-reliance-on-exposition script doesn't flow very well and just feels half-baked and wordy in a way not always easy to understand. The special effects are very ropy, they don't blend well and the proportions can be inconsistent.
Overall, had great potential and Sackhoff especially makes it watchable but suffers from dullness and being over-complicated and half-baked. 4/10 Bethany Cox
Don't watch
joaohmendonca8 January 2019
Pretty much nothing happens
scottjtepper21 August 2018
Cheesy special effects, a story that doesn't make sense and a claustrophobic set make this direct-to-dumpster movie an utter waste of time. There is not one thing in this overwrought piece of trash that redeems it. One star seems much too generous.
I'm sorry Starbuck I can't let you do that
pickfair1418 November 2018
So Starbuck goes into the mission control room and starts to engage with Hal who is operating the Mars lander. A minute passes. Then another minute and before long another minute has passed. Hal and Starbuck converse and try to solve the issues as another minute passes. 94 minutes later. ..roll credits
Adds nothing new to the genre
SeriousMayhem16 June 2018
This wasn't very good.
Movies about AI always want to be thought-provoking, and at the same time they always reinvent the same wheels over and over. This movie is no different.
If this had been made in the 80's, it would probably be considered a much better movie. But this is 2018 and you really have to bring something better to the table, especially if you want to preach a certain message.
I'm guessing there was a clear lack of budget, because apart from the CGI quality that ranges from barely passable to outright terrible, they had to invent some "science" and background to the story to justify the lack of actors and sets; the movie takes place in one room, and it's 90% Katee Sackhoff you see on screen.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, because with a great script and a great actor you can really create something wonderful (and CGI be damned). But the script overall is just so poor and Katee Sackhoff, who manages to pull off a decent performance (but no more than that), simply can't carry something like this and just drowns in the bad dialogue and overall story that unfolds around her in a largely illogical and mostly very unoriginal manner.
The pacing overall is slow, but not too slow for me personally, and nearing the end it does try to offer some sort of resolvement, with a little twist. If the movie itself had been better up to that point, I probably could have appreciated that effort a bit more. It also didn't help that most of the bigger questions are actually never answered and that the last 15 or so minutes were apparently filmed through a kaleidoscope.
All in all, not an unlikeable movie, but it's just not good at all. 4,5/10, rounding it up to a generous 5.
Movies about AI always want to be thought-provoking, and at the same time they always reinvent the same wheels over and over. This movie is no different.
If this had been made in the 80's, it would probably be considered a much better movie. But this is 2018 and you really have to bring something better to the table, especially if you want to preach a certain message.
I'm guessing there was a clear lack of budget, because apart from the CGI quality that ranges from barely passable to outright terrible, they had to invent some "science" and background to the story to justify the lack of actors and sets; the movie takes place in one room, and it's 90% Katee Sackhoff you see on screen.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, because with a great script and a great actor you can really create something wonderful (and CGI be damned). But the script overall is just so poor and Katee Sackhoff, who manages to pull off a decent performance (but no more than that), simply can't carry something like this and just drowns in the bad dialogue and overall story that unfolds around her in a largely illogical and mostly very unoriginal manner.
The pacing overall is slow, but not too slow for me personally, and nearing the end it does try to offer some sort of resolvement, with a little twist. If the movie itself had been better up to that point, I probably could have appreciated that effort a bit more. It also didn't help that most of the bigger questions are actually never answered and that the last 15 or so minutes were apparently filmed through a kaleidoscope.
All in all, not an unlikeable movie, but it's just not good at all. 4,5/10, rounding it up to a generous 5.
Interesting interpretation of an idea done by others
Clarke_Kent14 June 2018
Despite reading all the bad reviews (and I mean horrific) I saw the movie anyway and was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't nearly what so many of these negative reviews.
I'm no great writer so I'll just list the biggest and loudest complaints and give my take on them:
"CGI is like legos"
"Boring, slow"
"Horrible special effects"
"Bad acting"
The first thing to do is to put expectations in check and have at least a little understanding of what you're watching before making judgements. If you go into this thinking it's Transformers or any of the current Star Trek movies then yes, all of those reviews are absolutely correct. It did not deliver any of that because it is not (nor sold as) that kind of movie.
Now, set the correct expectations in that this is more of a dialogue driven story with a minimal budget and you will find this to be a thought provoking movie that talks about the future of humanity and AI and the idea of what if... There wasn't a long cast of characters. By my count five with actual lines. Two of which were voice only and a handful (like five maybe) of extras with no lines and are shown for about 8 seconds)
So basically it's Katee Sackoff who is charged with investigating a previously manned mission to Mars that resulted in the deaths of her crew, one of which was her father. She is to partner with an A.I. called A.R.T.I., (an onboard A.I.) and together they will remotely land and operate a rover that was sent to Mars, all from a control room. From there the story takes off and throughout the movie it takes you through some tense moments trying to land the rover successfully. Some twists and turns, more tense moments when making discoveries that in turn create more questions than answers. Katee Sackhoff was great, did a great job. The AI was also good, they had good exchanges. It kept an appropriate pace, nothing felt dragged out nor like I was waiting for anything. It had a start, a build up, and ended with something interesting with a twist.
The negatives I read: "CGI is like legos" ---- Nope. Although it was no Avatar it wasn't anywhere the "awful" description some have given it. It was perfectly reasonable and fit the story. I never found myself wondering about the CGI (and I am a big fan of ID4, star trek and and all the huge budget ones) "Boring, slow" --- I didn't find it slow at all. It moved, there was tension throughout and it did keep me guessing "Horrible special effects" ---(see the CGI answer...) "Bad acting" --- By who? There's 3 faces with lines, 95% Katee and how was she bad? I thought she did a great job
I gave it a 6 (and NOT a 1) because overall I liked it and was pleasantly surprised after reading so many bad reviews.
I gave it a 6 and nothing higher because although I liked it, it wasn't anything earth shattering (no pun intended...) and an extremely over played subject done by many. More than anything it seemed like another interpretation of an over done subject. That said I thought they could have done a better job of explaining things. Though very very interesting the ending didn't quite tie things together as well as I would have liked and I found myself a little confused. However I think I got it, (maybe..) Worth a rent (for me)
The first thing to do is to put expectations in check and have at least a little understanding of what you're watching before making judgements. If you go into this thinking it's Transformers or any of the current Star Trek movies then yes, all of those reviews are absolutely correct. It did not deliver any of that because it is not (nor sold as) that kind of movie.
Now, set the correct expectations in that this is more of a dialogue driven story with a minimal budget and you will find this to be a thought provoking movie that talks about the future of humanity and AI and the idea of what if... There wasn't a long cast of characters. By my count five with actual lines. Two of which were voice only and a handful (like five maybe) of extras with no lines and are shown for about 8 seconds)
So basically it's Katee Sackoff who is charged with investigating a previously manned mission to Mars that resulted in the deaths of her crew, one of which was her father. She is to partner with an A.I. called A.R.T.I., (an onboard A.I.) and together they will remotely land and operate a rover that was sent to Mars, all from a control room. From there the story takes off and throughout the movie it takes you through some tense moments trying to land the rover successfully. Some twists and turns, more tense moments when making discoveries that in turn create more questions than answers. Katee Sackhoff was great, did a great job. The AI was also good, they had good exchanges. It kept an appropriate pace, nothing felt dragged out nor like I was waiting for anything. It had a start, a build up, and ended with something interesting with a twist.
The negatives I read: "CGI is like legos" ---- Nope. Although it was no Avatar it wasn't anywhere the "awful" description some have given it. It was perfectly reasonable and fit the story. I never found myself wondering about the CGI (and I am a big fan of ID4, star trek and and all the huge budget ones) "Boring, slow" --- I didn't find it slow at all. It moved, there was tension throughout and it did keep me guessing "Horrible special effects" ---(see the CGI answer...) "Bad acting" --- By who? There's 3 faces with lines, 95% Katee and how was she bad? I thought she did a great job
I gave it a 6 (and NOT a 1) because overall I liked it and was pleasantly surprised after reading so many bad reviews.
I gave it a 6 and nothing higher because although I liked it, it wasn't anything earth shattering (no pun intended...) and an extremely over played subject done by many. More than anything it seemed like another interpretation of an over done subject. That said I thought they could have done a better job of explaining things. Though very very interesting the ending didn't quite tie things together as well as I would have liked and I found myself a little confused. However I think I got it, (maybe..) Worth a rent (for me)
In future there is no sound editing
xhidden9923 December 2018
In the future the most advanced technology in the world is profoundly unable to sound clear. Apparently you need massive echo, reverb and terrible bandwidth compresssion. Also all the robot cameras in the future are crappy quality. Moreover, though we know that Mars is either super quiet or predictably stormy, in the future the Martian atmosphere is both randomly violent and extremely destructive. Last but not least, in the future, AI will have less cognitive grasp of language than Google does now.
BTW none of this movie makes the least goddamn sense. Not even the childish explanations in the movie, while things are happening make the least sense at all. This was written by a 10 year old.
BTW none of this movie makes the least goddamn sense. Not even the childish explanations in the movie, while things are happening make the least sense at all. This was written by a 10 year old.
Deep Thinking SciFi - Not For Transformer Fans
bkhazelett30 July 2018
Lot of complaints about the special effects, if you plannning on watching and expecting special effects to keep your attention, please don't waste your time and just rewatch Avatar or Tranformers. This movie is more about science rather than fiction, and is an exercise in thought, not in action.
Fair warning when watching, pay attention.
Fair warning when watching, pay attention.
It's all been done before
ajwwood-2456329 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This seemed to me to be 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Contact meets any number of sci-fi goes to Mars related stories. At the end I expected to see either a giant baby or for Mack to have a conversation with her father.
Such a rip-off of other sci-fi movies with nothing original to say.
Such a rip-off of other sci-fi movies with nothing original to say.
At least a decent sci fi
werner-9513 June 2018
I've seen plenty of high budget movies packed with action scenes in a future that makes no sense. This movie at least tries a bit to remain in science fiction more than fantasy and with an interesting take on it. Kind of like 2001 but yet a pretty different take.
I'd say I saw the plot twist coming a mile away, but still I welcome that they tried to end with some sort of a closing instead of just a bang. Some event didn't get properly clarified and I think that's the biggest miss for this type of movies as it must be a coherent universe, else it's fantasy.
Forgetting that part, there are still quite many unrealistic goofs: - hyper-telecomunication in opening scene before it got invented - the space shuttle in opening scene wouldn't keep a forward trust for 90 days and would have to reverse trust way before even approaching Mars, but in the movie it kept the thrust and didn't "break" - cell phones that look like 2016 - no human would let a "beta" AGI have so much power (unless... sorry can't say else it may spoil the movie)
Should you see it? If you like SciFi, you're likely going to find the topics on par with current thought experiments and you may enjoy it. A lot is actually in the not said but in what you guess as you watch it.
I'd say I saw the plot twist coming a mile away, but still I welcome that they tried to end with some sort of a closing instead of just a bang. Some event didn't get properly clarified and I think that's the biggest miss for this type of movies as it must be a coherent universe, else it's fantasy.
Forgetting that part, there are still quite many unrealistic goofs: - hyper-telecomunication in opening scene before it got invented - the space shuttle in opening scene wouldn't keep a forward trust for 90 days and would have to reverse trust way before even approaching Mars, but in the movie it kept the thrust and didn't "break" - cell phones that look like 2016 - no human would let a "beta" AGI have so much power (unless... sorry can't say else it may spoil the movie)
Should you see it? If you like SciFi, you're likely going to find the topics on par with current thought experiments and you may enjoy it. A lot is actually in the not said but in what you guess as you watch it.
Kaleidoscopic Stupidity
macraig-216 December 2018
What writer and director in 2017 would think it's a grand idea to resurrect the worst of so-called "science fiction" from the Seventies and Eighties, including the mind-numbing kaleidoscopic effects that were stand-ins for actual special effects?
There is no science on display here, though it is certainly fictional. Fiction without science is just fantasy. Exploitation of a few trendy buzzwords and concepts from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) does not make it scientific. There is neither any deep thinking. The plot and concepts are incoherent, like the hallucinogenic "trip" of a career drug addict. The writer apparently had an extended trip himself and began to imagine himself as a philosophical genius who had wisdom to impart to the rest of us?
He isn't and he didn't.
There is no science on display here, though it is certainly fictional. Fiction without science is just fantasy. Exploitation of a few trendy buzzwords and concepts from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) does not make it scientific. There is neither any deep thinking. The plot and concepts are incoherent, like the hallucinogenic "trip" of a career drug addict. The writer apparently had an extended trip himself and began to imagine himself as a philosophical genius who had wisdom to impart to the rest of us?
He isn't and he didn't.
Starbuck, a computer, and a room
SnoopyStyle15 November 2018
It's 2030. Mars 1 crashes on the planet after getting hit by an energy field. Six years later, Mack Wilson (Katee Sackhoff) leads the investigation into the crash chaffing under the artificial intelligence computer ARTI's control. They find an object of unknown origin.
This is reminiscent of an old style sci-fi magazine story. British filmmaker Hasraf Dulull started in CGI and videogames into trying to make these smaller budget sci-fi movies. This could have been a Twilight zone episode although it may still be not good. It's stuffed with CGI scenes of a Mars mission. The human scenes consist mostly Sackhoff, a computer voice, and a techie room. The movie lacks a human touch and a human story. In short, it lacks humanity no matter how hard Sackhoff tries. It's only good for a shorter sci-fi TV episode.
This is reminiscent of an old style sci-fi magazine story. British filmmaker Hasraf Dulull started in CGI and videogames into trying to make these smaller budget sci-fi movies. This could have been a Twilight zone episode although it may still be not good. It's stuffed with CGI scenes of a Mars mission. The human scenes consist mostly Sackhoff, a computer voice, and a techie room. The movie lacks a human touch and a human story. In short, it lacks humanity no matter how hard Sackhoff tries. It's only good for a shorter sci-fi TV episode.
A sour Mars bar out of 10
MadNick013 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is something else. It has so many problems it's hard to keep track. It feels absolutely disjointed and has very bad special effects.
The Bad:
1) Repeating animations. For a movie made in 2018 it has an embarrassing amount of repeating/looping/reversed animations. This can be because the budget of this movie was extremely small or it was mismanaged. Some viewers like myself are attentive to details and when animations are looped or reversed it can be very irratating to watch. I felt like I was watching a Hanna Barbara cartoon. Not only they repeat the animations over and over but a lot of them look mediocre.
2) Convoluted plot. The movie starts relatively slow. You can keep up just fine up till the movie introduces The Cube. From that point the movie starts to just throw all kind of subplots at you that feel utterly disconnected from one another and go nowhere. The Cube can teleport from planet to planet. Why? Doesn't matter.
Cube's teleportation can be activated via EM pulse. Why? Just because.
The AI randomly decides to pull a "humans are killing each other a lot so I will kill them all and start over because I'm an evil AI" trope out of its metallic ass and starts to nuke Earth from orbit somehow.
The Mars space station for some reason has a SWAT team with guns on it that tries storming the room with the main character and the AI? Why? How? What's the point?
After the AI kills everyone on earth it lowers the oxygen in the room so that it can suffocate the main character. She eventually suffocated and then they zoom into her eye and show some CGI space for solid 2 minutes and then zooms our to reveal her being fine and listening to a video recording of herself telling her she is a reconstruction of herself and that she has a job to do.
That entire sequence made me facepalm. The ending of this movie is supposed to be this mysterious and ambiguous thing that just doesn't work because of bad CGI and delivery.
3) one room. The movie has 1 real room to work with. The rest is CGI and it's bad. When the movie started off with a ship flying from earth to Mars and it didn't even bother to show the crew or the insides of that ship I instantly realized how limited this movie is. The room itself is not that bad. The AI robot looks alright. Can't really complain about the room most of the movie takes place in but lack of other environments gets old very fast. The movie occasionally throws in a scene with some bad CGI that makes you realize even more that the only real thing in the movie is the room with the AI. It really pulls you out of the movie itself. The people who made this movie should take note from 1408.
4) Too long and dragged out. This movie is 1h and 35m. A lot of time is totally wasted.
Good:
1) The AI was cool. The design reminded me of GLaDOS from portal. Couldn't tell if it was a real prop or CG but it was alright. The "server" room looked interesting. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the room they were in was well made.
Conclusion:
This movie is like a very long and convoluted cutscene on playstation 3. It's watchable but I can't say that I would recommend it to someone or watch it again. It's not completely terrible. I defenetely seen worse than this though.
The Bad:
1) Repeating animations. For a movie made in 2018 it has an embarrassing amount of repeating/looping/reversed animations. This can be because the budget of this movie was extremely small or it was mismanaged. Some viewers like myself are attentive to details and when animations are looped or reversed it can be very irratating to watch. I felt like I was watching a Hanna Barbara cartoon. Not only they repeat the animations over and over but a lot of them look mediocre.
2) Convoluted plot. The movie starts relatively slow. You can keep up just fine up till the movie introduces The Cube. From that point the movie starts to just throw all kind of subplots at you that feel utterly disconnected from one another and go nowhere. The Cube can teleport from planet to planet. Why? Doesn't matter.
Cube's teleportation can be activated via EM pulse. Why? Just because.
The AI randomly decides to pull a "humans are killing each other a lot so I will kill them all and start over because I'm an evil AI" trope out of its metallic ass and starts to nuke Earth from orbit somehow.
The Mars space station for some reason has a SWAT team with guns on it that tries storming the room with the main character and the AI? Why? How? What's the point?
After the AI kills everyone on earth it lowers the oxygen in the room so that it can suffocate the main character. She eventually suffocated and then they zoom into her eye and show some CGI space for solid 2 minutes and then zooms our to reveal her being fine and listening to a video recording of herself telling her she is a reconstruction of herself and that she has a job to do.
That entire sequence made me facepalm. The ending of this movie is supposed to be this mysterious and ambiguous thing that just doesn't work because of bad CGI and delivery.
3) one room. The movie has 1 real room to work with. The rest is CGI and it's bad. When the movie started off with a ship flying from earth to Mars and it didn't even bother to show the crew or the insides of that ship I instantly realized how limited this movie is. The room itself is not that bad. The AI robot looks alright. Can't really complain about the room most of the movie takes place in but lack of other environments gets old very fast. The movie occasionally throws in a scene with some bad CGI that makes you realize even more that the only real thing in the movie is the room with the AI. It really pulls you out of the movie itself. The people who made this movie should take note from 1408.
4) Too long and dragged out. This movie is 1h and 35m. A lot of time is totally wasted.
Good:
1) The AI was cool. The design reminded me of GLaDOS from portal. Couldn't tell if it was a real prop or CG but it was alright. The "server" room looked interesting. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the room they were in was well made.
Conclusion:
This movie is like a very long and convoluted cutscene on playstation 3. It's watchable but I can't say that I would recommend it to someone or watch it again. It's not completely terrible. I defenetely seen worse than this though.
Overly convoluted plot issues, lazy screenplay and dragged out run-time.
Top_Dawg_Critic25 June 2018
Hasraf Dulull got really lazy with this screenplay/story. The overly convoluted plot issues and ridiculously dragged out scenes and run-time are disappointing compared to his previous film, The Beyond, which I enjoyed 100x more. This seemed like a high school student made a film to display his computer graphics/animation skills and added a boring story to their presentation. I could barely stay awake watching this boring production. Don't waste your time with this one. It's a 2/10 from me.
Started out pretty good...
Reckat23 June 2018
... if you understand that SciFi doesn't need to be about exploding space ships and exotic aliens. I like how the "think about..." SciFi came back in the last few years with movies like Arrival. This is similar in setting. Everything plays out in the command center of an exploration mission. It starts out a bit boring, but after the discovery on Mars I got hooked. Then in the end it got all messy. The computer does something pretty much unexpected and inconsistent with its previous behavior (like ONE minute before), after that we get an ending which seems to try to mimic the ending of 2001 with a little bit of Contact spliced in, but in a way that seems like the writer thought "It has to be hard to understand for the audience. What better way to achieve this is there than writing an end I myself won't understand?" The ending of 2001 is easy to comprehend in comparison.
-
Ark775411 June 2018
I never write reviews to be fair, i just watched this however. I liked it, yes okay the effects are what they should be for this kind of film, the story is interesting, i liked the originality of how it came to be. There is a slight comparisons to 2001 but in the same vein it twists it. To be honest 2001 is classed as a masterpiece but i think its got a stupid ending,this at least went in depth a bit.
Just go in with an open mind and you'll like it. Plus the lead actress is the fit one from battlestar and she gives a great performance.
Just go in with an open mind and you'll like it. Plus the lead actress is the fit one from battlestar and she gives a great performance.
Self-absorbed nonsense
Snootz7 July 2018
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.
It's British. It's slow. Get over it.
kegill1 January 2019
Yes, it's slow. It unfolds like a one-person play ("bottle format" - main scene: the control room). Katee Sackhoff is brilliant (reflect on how her character changed in response to ARTI over the course of the film, after you've watched it).
Yes, it will cause you to think abut 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Yes, it's low-budget. Katee said principal photography took place over nine (9) days. When you don't have what seems like an hour of battle-scene special effects, when you don't have Big Name Movie Stars, you don't NEED big budgets.
If you want to watch mindless shoot-em-ups-in-space, this is not the movie for you.
On the other hand, if you are interested in an exploration of technological development, not just AI, and you're comfortable with dystopia, then this is the movie for you.
Given current developments in AI and what appears to be firm resistance to public policy discussion of the ethics/legal ramifications, the movie is timely.
Yes, it will cause you to think abut 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Yes, it's low-budget. Katee said principal photography took place over nine (9) days. When you don't have what seems like an hour of battle-scene special effects, when you don't have Big Name Movie Stars, you don't NEED big budgets.
If you want to watch mindless shoot-em-ups-in-space, this is not the movie for you.
On the other hand, if you are interested in an exploration of technological development, not just AI, and you're comfortable with dystopia, then this is the movie for you.
Given current developments in AI and what appears to be firm resistance to public policy discussion of the ethics/legal ramifications, the movie is timely.
Decent TV Movie
nowego12 June 2018
I will admit up front that I only watched this movie because I saw Katee Sackhoff's face on the cover and her name as the lead. Pure and simple, I will watch anything she is in.
Personally it was a bit slow in places and some would probably turn it off early on. The CGI was fine for a TV movie and Katee Sackhoff's acting is always good and was as as expected. It probably had to be since she is the only one you see or hear 95% of the time.
I liked the story and while comparisons to 2001 are, while probably accurate, not relevant in my opinion. To be honest I cannot remember 2001 that well it has been so long since I last saw it and have no desire to watch it again. This I would watch again.
Nothing super special, but it is worth watching. Added bonus is Katee Sackhoff for fans of her work.
Personally it was a bit slow in places and some would probably turn it off early on. The CGI was fine for a TV movie and Katee Sackhoff's acting is always good and was as as expected. It probably had to be since she is the only one you see or hear 95% of the time.
I liked the story and while comparisons to 2001 are, while probably accurate, not relevant in my opinion. To be honest I cannot remember 2001 that well it has been so long since I last saw it and have no desire to watch it again. This I would watch again.
Nothing super special, but it is worth watching. Added bonus is Katee Sackhoff for fans of her work.
Uninteresting
nbtollison23 December 2018
This movie, while certainly not the worst movie I've seen, plays more a good SiFi channel movie then a netflix original. I suppose my biggest issue is that this movie doesn't bring anything new to the table despite being incapable of staying on topic. It grabs at every sci fi concept out there (space flight, AI, aliens, future tech, etc) but it feels like it just takes from existing media rather than contributing.the CGI shifts quickly from good to terrible. Overall, not a great movie
Origin - of the Theory of Everything!
starbase2026 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Wow! Where do I begin: 2001 computer HAL now updated as ARTI that 1) 'saves' and 'evolves' our heroine (aka humanity); and/or 2) is the source of multiple universes? It all is enough to make our heads spin. I bet Einstein would have enjoyed this movie and its concepts to inspire him for more theories.
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