All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. (Europa Report movie review)

I think that interplanetary travel is necessary for the survival of our species.  Even if it’s within our own system, our future lies somewhere other than Earth.  This past thanksgiving, my cousin and I were discussing what that might look like if it’s to be privately funded.  (The tourism possibilities are endless.)  Well, in Europa Report, a ship is sent, using private funds, to Jupiter’s moon Europa.  Instead of setting up a hotel, three theme parks and hundreds of Starbucks, they’re looking into some strange thermal readings; the mission is strictly scientific.

The movie starts with footage transmitted back to mission control.  It’s presented out of order, so we get the impression that something bad happened, but we don’t know what.  We get the explanation of what the mission is and why a manned mission is being sent up, rather than just some probe.  Jupiter is pretty far out, which makes impatience seem somewhat rational.  (It takes almost two years for the crew to get out there, to say nothing of the trip back.)

The mission starts with six crew members.  If you’ve seen similar movies, like Apollo 18 and The Blair Witch Project, you know that things will tend to go from bad to worse.  This is where I didn’t like the out-of-sequence nature of the footage.  One crew member is dealing with survivor’s guilt after a spacewalk.  We know something bad is going to happen to one of the crew members, but we don’t know what.

The other five do make it, but even then, there’s an element of danger.  There’s radiation.  They have to worry about landing on and taking off from ice.  There’s also the unknown.  There could be all sorts of untold dangers.  And one of them wants to go out to get samples after the probe is lost.

The movie is definitely better than Apollo 18.  Very little of the movie takes place on Europa; most of it is spent in transit.  You’d think it would be all cheesy, but it’s done well.  The crew members interact and manage to not get on each other’s nerves.  You see them sending messages home or explaining the artificial gravity.  Most of the buildup is in hoping that they’ll find something.  They expect single-celled organisms, if anything.  Would the mission be a bust if they find nothing?  Not really.  Finding nothing would be a discovery in its own right.

The big problem with going out that far is that you’re on your own.  This is used to nice effect at several points in the movie.  If something breaks, it’s not like you can call for roadside assistance.  You have to fix it yourself.  If someone gets sick, you have to hope you have what it takes to heal them.

The CGI was well done, all things considered.  Seeing Jupiter in the sky was pretty nice.  My only complaint was that Europa is about the size of our moon.  Shouldn’t there be considerably less gravity than Earth?  I’m not sure how close Europa is to Jupiter, but the planet is pretty big.  (It is called a gas giant, after all.)  I’d think that tidal forces would have been more noticeable.  I was also surprised that they didn’t bring more experiments.  You’d think they’d have brought some algae or be doing experiments on frog reproduction or something.

I found this through Netflix streaming.  Since the movie probably has little replay value, I’d say that renting or streaming is the way to go.  It’s not a bad movie.  It definitely tends more towards 2001 and 2010 than Apollo 18 and Blair Witch.  It’s just that I don’t think I’d sit through it a second time.

IMDb page

Persona/Perusona (2008) review

There are certain indications of how well a movie will turn out.  There does seem to be a direct correlation between both the length and clarity of a description and how good the movie is.  If the description says simply that it’s filled with action, but doesn’t describe what kind, that’s not a good sign.  Another indication is how many other projects the principal actors have been attached to.  However, I’m not yet sure what it means when IMDb doesn’t list the characters’ names next to the actors.  (You’ll have to look for Perusona, which was released in 2008.)

The movie is about a doctor, Koichiro Kiba, who loses his wife.  All he’s told is that she died unexpectedly.  He takes it hard.  He’s not doing things with coworkers.  He’s not cleaning the house.  He’s even taken to hanging out at a local park at night, where he meets a strange woman.  When I say strange, she seems to know things about him like his name.  She’s taken off in a van to go back to the hospital.

The funny thing is that the markings on the van match the place where his wife was supposed to start working.  Koichiro finds the woman, but the facility caring for her isn’t all that forthcoming with information.  It turns out that his wife was to be part of some secret project that can transfer memories into another person, which somehow makes them stronger.  Koichiro’s wife is still alive and he’s able to find someone willing and able to help.  He just has to fight off a bunch of these enhanced soldiers first.

This is one of those movies that had so much potential.  The film quality and acting are at least decent, but not much about the plot is explained.  For instance, I’m not sure how transferring memories also transfers strength.  Since the movie is subtitled, it’s possible I missed something.  It’s also possible that no one wanted to explain it.  They just needed people to be really strong.

Also, I got the impression that the wife had some moral objections about her new job.  There was no indication that she tried to warn anyone before she ‘died’.  Her being comatose was necessary for the transfer procedure.  No one said anything to the effect of, “Well, that’s what she gets…” or anything.  For that matter, I’m not really sure why she was used.  You’d think that they’d use someone with combat experience.  Even if you say that she’s expendable, it seems like she had experience that would have been useful to the scientific aspect of the project.  How hard would it have been to find someone no one would have missed?

This is basically an action movie with a very thin plot holding it together.  When I say very thin, there seems to have been no effort into explaining anything.  Yes, this is something I found on Netflix streaming and I‘m glad for that.  At least I didn’t have to spend money on it.  This is one of those cases where the description was misleading.

IMDb page

Buraddo/Blood (2009)

There are movies that I’ll hold off watching if my only option is getting it as a DVD rental.  Netflix has allowed me to watch a lot of movies through its streaming service that I might not have otherwise watched.  Blood looked interesting.  There was an attractive woman on the cover.  She’s a vampire.  I put this on my list, knowing that renting it on DVD would be a waste, but streaming might just work.

The movie starts in Japan, some unspecified time in the past.  A warrior is near death on a woman’s property.  The woman, Miyako, is a vampire and can make him one, too.  Cut closer to the present.  A young girl is brutally murdered.  Years pass and the statute of limitations is approaching.  Detective Hoshino is transferred to the cold-case division and is assigned the case.  He sets out to find answers, so he starts with the woman who owned the house where the victim had been a servant.

It turns out that it’s the same woman from the start of the movie.  She has a young assistant, Brigitte, who doesn‘t say much.  Miyako knows what’s going on, but can’t really just come out and say it.  She makes Hoshino into a vampire and tells him about the murderer, which complicates things.  He knows who did it, but can’t really give the family justice without sounding crazy.

As you might expect from a vampire-police movie, there is a fair amount of fighting.  We also have two very attractive women, one of which has a lot of screen time naked.  Admittedly, I was hoping for this.  Other than that, the movie wasn’t that good.  The plot and script were marginal.  The pacing was slow.  The nudity was great, but there wasn’t a lot of it.

For instance, it was said that vampires couldn’t truly die.  If you wound one, they can regenerate.  If they appear dead, they’ll come back.  Beheading isn’t really acknowledged.  Could a head grow a new body or reattach itself to the old one?  Hoshino does get his wish, but at a cost.  The ending seemed more like the ending you’d use if you know you have to end the movie, but can’t come up with a good way to do so.

At least I didn’t have to waste the DVD rental on this or even pay for it.  This isn’t the worst of movies, but is far from the best.  It does have potential, though.  I’m just happy I was able to get a review out of it.  I imagine one day, I’ll find a soft-core vampire movie with an all-female cast.  I may not be able to stop watching it.


IMDb page