3.5/5
116 Mins. Starring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson & Toni Collette. Director: Joe Penna.
Lost in space. I could watch compellingly cerebral, out of this world, solar system movies for light years. They say in space, "no one can hear you scream", which makes this great genre of science fiction fast becoming fact movies the perfect slow burners like engine fuel. Mesmerizing, from the meditative (Brad Pitt's 'Ad Astra'), to the melancholic (the 'Solaris' of his 'Oceans' commander George Clooney's 'Midnight Sky' (also on Netflix)). Constellations of concepts have revolved around the sun so many times in these movies, like seeing stars that have already burnt out. But this Netflix 'Stowaway' boldy goes where no one has gone before. A hidden gem that will be stored away in your suggestions library until you continue watching. Even if the streaming goliath has a galaxy of 'Interstellar' quests ready to take your social distanced isolation, staying safe at home during these troubled times to a lockdown far, far away. From the legend of '2001: A Space Odyssey', to modern day greats like 'Arrival', 'Passengers' (very close to the console of this one) and Ryan Gosling's 'First Man'. Not to mention their own off world fare. From 'The Space Between Us' and 'Space Sweepers', to 'The Mars Generation' that truly believe we can sustain life on the red planet like a Matt Damon 'Martian', or the subplot of this movie. But who could forget 'The Cloverfield Paradox' (even if most wish they could), the sequel to the found footage and haunted house horrors of what was the most inventive alien franchise. And how about the services shows in season? From the 'Lost In Space' reboot to the parody trumping 'Space Force'? And even Hilary Swank's evicted 'Home'. Yet we're only just entering the atmosphere of all this. Although nothing tops the moving and human documentary series of the tragic 'Challenger: The Final Flight' documentary produced by 'Cloverfield's', 'Star Trek'/'Star Wars' director JJ Abrams showing us the actual lives we lost. Catastrophe always orbits closer than comfort to man made missions to space were all that separates you from the perils of all that black is a glass visor or walls thinner than ones in your apartment when you're bothered by noisy neighbors in the night. Speaking of rude awakenings and unexpected visitors, how about the arrival that comes to this movie and all that is stowed away in this outstanding and original space drama at full force?
A stowaway is defined as, "a clandestine traveller that secretly boards a vehicle, such as a ship, an aircraft (or here spaceship). Sometimes the purpose is to get from one place to another without paying for transportation" (thanks Wikipedia). But is that what's happening here as Toni Collette finds Shamier Anderson unconscious and bleeding in this ships ceiling? Was he here by the accident that supposedly looks like it happened? Or worse...something else more 'Event Horizon' insidious (that was like Sam Neill's 'Dead Calm' ship, just on a different current of high seas? To make the gravity of this situation even worse there's no room at this inn as the airs too thin. There's only enough 02 to go round like a mobile service provider and it's about to get even harder to wait to exhale in this coiled tension of a pressure cooker movie that boa wraps around your every nerve like the anxiety attack of an Adam Sandler 'Uncut Gem'. Now if there's not enough photosynthesis for the plants on board as part of their project then you know there's going to be even less breathing room for the sighing and heavy hearted crew. One that includes kindly, chief medical researcher Anna Kendrick, the jazz loving biologist Daniel Dae Kim and a portal picturing window to the world that makes the 'Endgame' abyss that Robert Downey Jnr's avenging Tony Stark through an Iron Man helmet stared through look like the treading of shallow water. Forget leaving your last will and testament for a Pepper pot in a robot head, which you may as well have stored after you were saved, instead of letting it go in a click of your fingers. Imagine being told there's no mathematical way you could get breathing space and be on this ship. Imagine being asked to walk the plank. Could you do it? Could you go through with it in regards to holding the sword if you were the captain of this ship? Mortality dilemmas beyond morality have never been such a clusterf###. And you thought 'Passengers' was bad (it was). And for the captains log record Chris Pratt should have never woke Jennifer Lawrence up almost 100 years early just because he did and because he fancied her too (beyond creepy in all its toxic masculinity). He should have let her sleep like Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan 'Into Darkness'. Boy, what a headache.
'Up In The Air'? Nah past the midnight skies like her aerial co-star Clooney on her taking flight breakout, this is one of Anna Kendrick's best. Like the 'Pitch Perfect' star affording more in Ben Affleck's 'The Accountant', or of course her '(A) Simple Favor' with Blake Lively, between Henry Golding. But in this epic she excels the heart of this matter in the cold and soulless confines of space. Torn between everyone else confliction and her own conviction. And then 'Lost' in space there's the most GQ of leading men esquire's Daniel Dae Kim, just oozing old-school Hollywood charm like Harry Belafonte, but also providing the emotional punch of this picture of our home planet from the biggest social distance. This is the big-screen (albeit on your laptop or God forbid smartphone (listen to Lynch) right now) role the 2019 'Hellboy' actor has been waiting for. The rest of his compelling career is going to be out of this world more than a tired, spaced out (oh, there's another one) cliche from this writer. Now, ever since 'Muriel's Wedding', Toni Collette has been a formidable force. How she didn't get the Best Actress Oscar for 'Hereditary' based off her facial expressions is the real horror story though. The amazing actor even saved Netflix's 'I'm Thinking Of Ending Things' from being streaming suicide (it was OK and I'm all for offbeat movies, but seriously W.T.F.). The 'Knives Out' and 'Velvet Buzzsaw' Netflix star just cuts into everything she does with a fresh and redefining difference with an edge all of her own. And just like the Academy should recognise the scared s###less, shock and awe of the human horrors that haunt the fright night genre that still makes you feel like hiding in your hands in this desensitised age were we don't feel anything anymore, there is no one like her. No one tears through tears quite like her. Who else to be the commanding presence to take the helm here. Even if our 'Stowaway' himself threatens to steal more than the show. 'Across The Line', 'Love Jacked' Shamier Anderson brings a raw humanity to this calculated mission that doesn't figure him into the equation. And his everyman nice guy stuck in the middle of it all with more in character. Now just how good is his acting when he discovers that sleeping in the job can leave you fired...up into the stars with three of Hollywood's biggest. All for Brazilian 'Arctic' and music artist Joe Penna's scripted direction of tension tethered to this shuttle that even features zero gravity climbs that could rival the one that left Sandra Bullock as a space cast away with no volleyball in 'Gravity'. It's just a shame we can't see it on the big screen to get a real sense of IMAX scale in this solar system spectacle. But then again worse things happen at sea...or is that space? TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'Gravity', 'Midnight Sky', 'Ad Astra'.
No comments:
Post a Comment