I am not sure how this movie completely passed me by 12 years ago, as I am always at least mildly interested in any media in the sci-fi genre. This popped up on a recommended list somewhere and I have enjoyed Cillian Murphy and Rose Byrne's performances in other things (in retrospect, pretty great in this movie too), so I gave it a shot.
The film has incredibly impressive visuals - both CGI and practical effects. Not once did I remark to myself that anything looked "fake" or took me out of the moment in that regard. With a strong visual springboard the movie starts off awesome and I totally bought into the setup - in my opinion, we're halfway there.
About 50-60% into the movie, it takes some pretty sharp turns from a generalized "something-went-wrong" sci-fi thriller into what resembles something like if "The Core" met "Scream", all the while taking every major cue from "Event Horizon" as the story's foundation. This part of the script, coupled with fairly strange stylistic choices and editing techniques, really sort of snapped me out of the groove.
It is well-directed, and the ingredients and mixers are there for a great sci-fi/horror flick, it just seemed like the proverbial blender stopped working halfway through the movie. I think it should have taken any of the aforementioned films and focused on channeling that energy and style, rather than trying to shuffle back and forth between science fiction, horror, or even an indie film at times, peppered with some cheap slasher elements that don't really drive the story forward. Checking out director Danny Boyle's past films like "Trainspotting", "The Beach" and "28 Days Later", I can see where he takes his strengths across a wide variety of his past efforts and applied them as best as he could to this film.
I give it a 6/10 for awesome visuals, great acting and directing - the missing stars due to misguided genre and script beats directly lifted from "Event Horizon".
The film has incredibly impressive visuals - both CGI and practical effects. Not once did I remark to myself that anything looked "fake" or took me out of the moment in that regard. With a strong visual springboard the movie starts off awesome and I totally bought into the setup - in my opinion, we're halfway there.
About 50-60% into the movie, it takes some pretty sharp turns from a generalized "something-went-wrong" sci-fi thriller into what resembles something like if "The Core" met "Scream", all the while taking every major cue from "Event Horizon" as the story's foundation. This part of the script, coupled with fairly strange stylistic choices and editing techniques, really sort of snapped me out of the groove.
It is well-directed, and the ingredients and mixers are there for a great sci-fi/horror flick, it just seemed like the proverbial blender stopped working halfway through the movie. I think it should have taken any of the aforementioned films and focused on channeling that energy and style, rather than trying to shuffle back and forth between science fiction, horror, or even an indie film at times, peppered with some cheap slasher elements that don't really drive the story forward. Checking out director Danny Boyle's past films like "Trainspotting", "The Beach" and "28 Days Later", I can see where he takes his strengths across a wide variety of his past efforts and applied them as best as he could to this film.
I give it a 6/10 for awesome visuals, great acting and directing - the missing stars due to misguided genre and script beats directly lifted from "Event Horizon".