Could have been so much better

Rating: 1/10 (12 September 2019)

This film had a good underlying idea but the execution was just frustrating. Here are just a few of them:
1. The cameraman seemed to have left a blue-grey muslin cloth over the lens for the entire film. It was dark, muted, miserable, grey. Made you fed up before you had even seen 5 mins of it. The sun never shone. It was depressing and annoying.
2. What's with the heavy breathing, Amy? No-one else wearing a space suit had the need to inhale/exhale loudly the whole time as though they have just run 400m, but directors seems to think that this raises tension or shows that the character is at the limits of their endurance but for goodness sake, all she is doing is walking!
3. Other reviewers have mentioned many of the plot holes so I won't repeat them. But that whole bit about disconnecting from the other 11 sites with the screens all going down together was just daft, as was the aliens being so advanced yet unable to communcate the message they had come with (had they not thought of this before they came?) unless, by chance, a linguistic lady was able to, by some miracle never explained, interpret their circular smoke squiggles?
4. Mumbling. A perennial issue with American films. Forest Whittaker spots Jeremy Renner. "Fergh ish blufl?" he asks. "Chauff" replies Jeremy. "Beturf eh wogue" says Forest before ambling off. Huh? What did you guys just say? Rewinding and playing it back often doesn't help. Because they mumbled!! They seem to forget that there might be an audience straining to hear what they are saying. Annoying.
5. Acting. Amy Adams spent much of her time staring suddenly at the ground and making 'I've just thought of something ground-breaking' faces, before resuming whatever she was doing and revealing nothing. Jeremy Renner was hardly in it. Forest Whittaker just acted the tough guy, mumbled and bumbled around the place barking silly orders, and always looked as though he was really fed up and couldn't wait to get out of there. Perhaps because it was so dim and grey, who could blame him.
There was a good film in there struggling to get out, but it didn't.