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"Europa Report" (2013)
Pilots aren't great thinkers. At least not Rosa Dasque.
Rosa apparently has a saying that goes a little something like this:
"Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known... what does your life actually matter?"
Well Rosa, I'll tell you what it matters; it matters everything!
If you're not alive you can't know any of your knowledge.
Knowledge can only exist if someone knows it.
Knowledge without life... is an oxymoron.
So Rosa, my advice to you; stop thinking and just concentrate on the piloting!
Ok, stepping out of the movie's universe; Anamaria Marinca is well cast as Rosa Dasque. I was very impressed with her performance and character-vividness. She's clearly a competent and skilled actor. In fact all the actors do a wonderful job in this movie (or maybe the director is just really good)
Actually it's much easier to simply jump straight to the conclusion, which is that "Europa Report" is really one of the most impressive space-themed movies around.
There is so much to like about it that it easily qualifies as one of the best scifi movies you can find as of the year 2014. I think you have to go all the way back to the 1960s to find movies that attempt to keep it real as much as "Europa Report" does. And that is truly refreshing!
Tech-stuff first:
The image-quality (I watched it on blu-ray, which is sadly not available in all countries. In Denmark it's only officially released on DVD so to get a blu-ray version you have to import it. That's so sad) is top-notch. Clearly worth watching on blu-ray for the finer details and the visual candy (and there's plenty in "Europa Report" to feast the eyes). It's shot on digital, but that works in favor of this movie actually (since it's styled to appear in part as a documentary. Incidentally, if that turns you off, don't worry about it, its style does actually feel like a regular movie and not like a gimmick). There was a single thing I might have done differently if I was the maker of this movie, and that is that I think I would've opted for a higher frame-rate, to avoid the typical movie-judder, and rather go for the traditional smooth look of video (but I'm biased since I prefer judder-free images in all movies I watch, and it's not really an issue since modern TVs can mostly smooth the images for you anyway)
And I have to mention the color-grading to, at pet peeve of mine, THANK YOU for grading this movie in such a beautiful way! None of that crazy duo-color tone that so many modern block-busters is haunted by. The color-grading of "Europa Report" is spot-on! That's how you do it! Perfect!
The audio and soundtrack is top-notch. Dialog is easy to hear (this movie is not plagued by the annoying trend of lowering speech to levels that are foolishly low and raising effects to levels that are foolishly loud. Good balance which still retains impressive sound-effects) and sound-track does an excellent job of setting the mood without becoming obtrusive or taking attention away from the story. Great work.
Style-stuff:
It appears we're watching a special documentary about this space-mission (supposedly presented to us as something that has already happened) to Jupiter's moon Europa. That's the premise, it seems.
While this may sound like it couldn't possibly carry a whole movie, it is actually not very intrusive. I didn't feel much different than I do when watching a 'normal' movie (with the usual type of linear storyline progression). The suspense and immersion, for me anyway, was just as good as with 'normal' movies. I wasn't thrown off by this style-choice. In fact I think it was a good choice, the way they did it, for the story of this movie.
There's a good balance between personal stuff (the typical 'getting to know the people', whatever the main story is) and the actual story (the events that our little band of likable protagonists are thrust through)
The movie never resorts to pointless clichés, unless you consider launch countdowns a cliché (there are a couple, but this is a space-movie afterall, launch-countdowns are mandatory.), or tons of geeky stuff like foolish techie-talk without real meaning that is just there to sound cool and smart (the movie never takes any cheap-shots like that)
The storyline (the space-mission events), when considered linearly (in the movie its presented non-linearly), is rather fluid in the sense that you never have any definite character-leads but rather a team-effort (there's no good-guy vs bad-guy stereotyping, but a sense of allroundness/completeness to all the characters. They appear more real, more human, than characters often do in most movies. I liked that a lot)
The movie-set, both inside and outside the space-ship, is actually quite impressively made. Again they hit the perfect balance between coolness and meaningfulness. For example, there is no flashing lights that flash just to have something flashy flashing.
The outfits aren't parodies either. Too many space-themed movies have space-suits that make you cry, but thankfully "Europa Report" is not one of these movies. And they're not wearing gadgets that are just there for the fluff-effect. Everything really seems to have been given thought rather than being left to randomness (an effort you have to respect given that this movie, as most space-themed movies, aren't likely to appeal to the same broad mainstream audience as more traditional movies)
There's a lot of good to say about this movie.
It may not be a chick-flick as such, although that obviously depends on the chick, but is likely more appealing to those who already have an interest in the theme of space.
All in all I can easily recommend getting and watching this movie.
It's easily one of the best scifi movies you can find as of the year 2014.
It is really brilliant and well done in all aspects of the production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbw9hlBnG74
| Additional Blu-ray options | Edition | Discs | Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
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Blu-ray
5 Nov. 2013 "Please retry" | — | 1 | £14.61 | £6.33 |
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Blu-ray
8 Oct. 2013 "Please retry" | — | 1 | £17.08 | £17.08 | — |
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Blu-ray
18 Oct. 2021 "Please retry" | Limited Edition | — |
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