If you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t let this ‘review’ influence your desire to do so because you might end up having a completely different opinion. After all, the critical response varies a lot. One of the first things that came to my mind, half the way into the movie, was how this piece was going to be loved by critics and hated by the average audience. The movie radiates class and quality from the very beginning. Visuals are stunning, characters are fleshed out even after being on screen for just a short while, the sound is great, acting is amazing, and Brad Pitt killed it. There are plenty of breathtaking scenes. Protagonist free-falling tens of kilometers before finally parachuting to the ground, intense rover race on the moon, flying through open space, investigating an abandoned spaceship and much more are all times when I wasn’t even blinking and just absorbing what was happening on the screen. And even though show-don’t-tell is a great rule when it comes to making a film, Brad Pitt does an incredible job through his inner monologues, further enhancing the already great atmosphere.
However, even with all that, the movie feels as if it goes on forever, and once it’s finally over, there’s that “is that it?” kind of emotion. Of course, different strokes for different folks and, even with adult porn games there are those with better visuals or stories and those with better gameplay. As an avid sci-fi enthusiast, as much as I was enthralled with the visuals, I was also disappointed because I was expecting more of a mystery and not just a (simple) drama set in space. The story and its message are clear, defined and well presented, no question about it, but that story could’ve been told in any setting. There was absolutely no need for it to be in space or even marketed as a compelling space horror. On top of all that, there are some scientific inaccuracies that I couldn’t overlook. And it can get painfully slow. At least for me. Often times I didn’t get that Interstellar-slow where they were building up to something. Some scenes were just dragging on forever.
So, if I had to sum it all up and give it pros and cons, it would look something like this. Visuals are worth the watch but it looks as if they are being used to stretch the runtime. In my humble opinion, the movie would be much better as half an hour short. I was really tempted on numerous occasions to just give up and go back to playing CDG porn games. My advice would be to forget the trailer (because I’m pretty sure you’ve watched it and, just like I did, perhaps formed different expectations). Don’t think of the movie as a mystery/horror, but rather as a compelling drama, where a man reconsiders what is important in life, coupled with stunning visuals, futuristic and space setting, and bits and pieces of sci-fi.
