Softwing
Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
MamaGravity
good back-story, and good acting
GetPapa
Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible
emg_5
I came across the Europa Report by chance while browsing trailers & was utterly astonished at the thrilling beauty of the short movie. With masterful sure-footedness, we are taken on a journey in the form of a faux-documentary about an exploratory manned mission to Europa. I was left as astonished, and more persuaded (thanks to an excellent screenplay & story) as I have been by other sci-fi films 50 x the budget it took to make the Europa Report. I sincerely hope the producer/directors return to this genre. It's so rare to see a truly intelligent, well-thought out sci-fi story brought to life like this
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Stevieboy666
Found footage movie about a doomed manned space mission to explore Jupiter's ice moon Europa. Despite a low budget we have a riveting, claustrophobic and suspenseful film which at times made me feel like I was actually on board with the crew. One of the most memorable scenes involves one of the astronauts floating away from the craft to his inevitable death. Truly haunting. As others have pointed out there are goofs, such as the ability to communicate with Earth without any time delay, but these don't detract from this being a really good, intelligent sci fi movie.
vvp_14
This movie will certainly be on my top sci-fi list. I was amazed how good this film turned out to be. Unlike some films that pretend to be big and ambitious in the beginning and turn out to be disastrous and disappointing in the end, this one is the complete opposite. At the start one can hardly call it a spectacle. It starts off with a tiny screen of some on-board video and you think it's some home made video that will bore your brains and you'll wish you've never seen it.The entire film is shot by wide-angle on-board fixed cameras in a documentary style, interlaced with interviews of mission controllers filling up on the story and a member of the crew talking on camera during the mission. Cameras keeps switching from one to the next showing distorted faces. Mmmm. Irritating. If you have seen How To Irritate People by Monty Python this is it. And since this is low budget the creators used archive footage of US Atlas launch vehicle which cost nothing. The shots from external cameras on the ship, however, show this is all new really well made CGI for the film.It definitely is a sci-fi sister of the horror movie The Blair Witch Project when it comes to the shooting style, and, in fact, the plot. I would consider it probing into something new in cinematography, at least as far as sci-fi goes. But if you can take this docudrama style you'll be just fine.In this an hour and a half long movie there's not much action in the first 20 minutes - a routine talk of a six strong international crew and interviews with flight controllers. These give us valuable information about the goal of the mission and Europa itself, which is an ice world and it is believed that under the thick ice crust some water and even oceans may exist, so the mission is to take ice samples and drill through the ice in the hope to find water and... life. The film is scientifically and technically quite accurate which makes it a truly classic science fiction, reminding of the good old days of the 2001: Space Odyssey.Then it starts getting better. They add footage taken by astronauts with a hand-held cameras. They show the real weightlessness in the ship and it looks like they did a really fine job building a very nice and a realistic spacecraft with all the equipment and spacesuits, which are very well made. The space, the planets are also very realistic and true to life.By now I'm curious if this is not what I expected. I'm also getting used to the documentary style. Without revealing too much let's just say the idea is that this footage reaches Earth and here we are - watching what's happening.* SPOILERS *The ship arrives at Jupiter's orbit, then they transfer to Europa's orbit and they finally land on Europa. They start drilling the ice and then notice something is going on outside the ship. They make their first stunning discoveries under the ice with first tense scenes. At this point the narration takes us back in time when the ship was still on the way to Jupiter and there is an EVA going on to repair some modules damaged in a sun storm. A horrible accident happens outside and there is a brilliantly made, very tense and gripping action scenes. By now this movie got my full attention.Now we are back on Europa. The ship actually landed a bit off target and one of the crew gets out of the ship to get samples after a hard debate if an EVA was necessary (radiation levels on Europa are high and dangerous due to closeness to Jupiter). Then events start to unravel in an unexpected direction and from this point on you are on a thrilling and gripping roller-coaster ride right to the end of the film with the astronauts ready to sacrifice their lives to finding life in our Solar system.* ENS OF SPOILERS *This is a well-written and a very well directed movie with a brilliant story. I would particularly mention the excellent actor's play. I've never seen any of them before and it was yet another pleasant surprise about it. Points off for camera-work with wide-angle shots and some distorted faces and archive footage of the launch for what is otherwise a wonderful feature film. Highly recommended.
Enzo Zarsend
The first half of the film seemed unnecessarily confusing (did not need use as many time jumps). But when the plot begins to settle down and go filling in the gaps, we find a great movie very attached to scientific guidelines we know so far. This film gives us a chilling trip into one of the most striking Jupiter's moons. Note that the characters are not very attractive. However the story unfolds in a captivating environment full of mysteries.Most notable are the images so well achieved Jupiter and its moons. This film is a journey that every lover of science and astronomy should do.