Love space flicks...this one not so much...

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2014)

I don't get it. This movie annoyed me on so many levels. First of all, the producers should have hired a diction coach for the actors, or they hired the wrong one. If you are going to have dialog, no matter how inconsequential or banal, at least have the actors deliver the lines without sounding like they have a mouth full of marbles. Second, why all the noise? Really, some of it was an overwhelming clatter that added nothing to the film, almost as annoying a cacophony as that in the film Armageddon, a movie I intensely disliked. Third, I do not understand all the hype about the great musical score for this film. What?! Again, like with the noise, the score was heavy-handed and way too loud. Sorry, but modern films that use methods and tools to excess to the point where the attention is drawn to the method or tool and away from the action fail to maintain the viewer's suspension of reality and consequently fail to entertain. The score should enhance the action and not compete with it. Obviously, current moviegoers don't mind having their emotions manipulated in such heavy-handed ways. Fourth, this film would have been much better with better character development and less melodrama. I wish this had been a better film and not a soap opera in space. And, fifth, some of the CGI was truly bad. I can't think of any film that used water in a convincing way. And this one failed at the CGI water scenes also. The editor must have known this, as the CGI water scenes were mercifully short.
I refrain from describing examples in the film where the above five items are particularly evident, as anything I might say could be considered a plot spoiler.