After waiting not-so-patiently for this film to FINALLY open in the states, I was psyched to get to finally see it. I’m a sci-fi nerd, and proud of it. I knew this movie was designed to contain more of the science side of that name than most material of the genre. And ultimately that sentiment is true, up to a point. When it comes right down to it, this movie could have been my favorite movie of the year - right up until the final act of the film. That’s where it all completely falls apart. Everything they had tried to achieve up to that point unravels, in a massive way. Movies like this are particularly frustrating. Still, I’ll rank it pretty high despite the screwed up final act, just because the stuff preceding it is so darned great.

Writing: Like I said, this is the single problematic aspect of the film. For the first 3/4 of the running time, it is absolutely fantastic. Then all the sudden, it becomes a different movie. One that sucks. I don’t know what happened. More specifically, I have no idea what caused them to pretty much abandon what they had been trying to achieve up to that point to turn it into a movie that it’s not. If they had rewritten the final act to keep it grounded in reality, they would have had a flat-out fantastic film.

Production: Absolutely nothing to complain about here. The production of the film, from every department, is stunning. The visual effects work is absolutely gorgeous. Massive amounts of praise to the folks that pulled that off. The cinematography is beautiful and very striking. Sound design is rich, vibrant and subtle. Production and set design are spot-on. The production is fantastic even when the script completely falls apart at the end. I particularly love the way the vfx team shot the “beauty passes” of the spacecraft in different ways during the first act of the film, giving it all sorts of different moods and energy.

Cast: Here’s another excellent aspect of the film. Cillian Murphy comes through yet again in a Danny Boyle movie. Chris Evans is excellent in his no-nonsense role. Rose Byrne turns in a nice, subtle performance. The rest of the supporting cast does a fine job.

Music: Danny Boyle’s composer of choice lately is John Murphy, who along with industrial music duo Underworld comes through with a nice score. It’s a little bit reminiscent of something that composer Clint Mansell might do with the material. Overall, it works.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.